In today’s Gospel – Luke 3:10-18 – a lot is happening! The crowds are pressing on John the Baptist for instructions as to what they must do. They are “filled with expectation”. This is a dangerous situation, especially with the Roman authorities hyper-alert to any signs of the Pax Romana being upset. John deflects attention from himself: “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire”.
John announces the Holy Spirit! We are invited to participate in the Spirit’s unpredictable work. It is gift and task. But we are never in control. Blessed are those who endure this constant yielding to the Spirit of God. “There is no greater freedom than that of allowing oneself to be guided by the Holy Spirit, renouncing the attempt to plan and control everything to the last detail, and instead letting him enlighten, guide and direct us, leading us wherever he wills” (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, #280).
January 25 2022 will be the sixty second anniversary of Pope John XXIII’s announcement that he would convoke a Council. John noted that the seventeen Cardinals present for this announcement greeted the news with ‘impressive, devout silence’ (Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A Komonchak, History of Vatican II, Volume l: Announcing and Preparing Vatican II - Toward a New Era in Catholicism, Or bis/Peeters, 1995, 2). He further noted that although all the Cardinals – those present as well as those absent – were invited to submit a response that would let him know how each felt and the suggestions they might give for carryingthrough on the plan for a Council, ‘few accepted the invitation and almost all who did, did soin cold and formal language' (Ibid).
Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan, later Pope Paul VI, still later, St Paul VI, at the time commented to a close friend, Fr Giulio Bevilacqua: ‘This holy old boy does not seem to realise what a hornet's nest he is stirring up’ (Peter Hebblethwaite, John XXIII: Pope of the Council, revised edition, Fount Paperbacks, 1994, 324). To which Bevilacqua gave a very wise response: ‘Don't worry Don Battista, lascia fare, let it be, the Holy Spirit is still awake in the Church’ (Ibid).
The modern Western mindset does not dispose us well to waiting, even though life is full of it. Is this perhaps because we have grown used to an illusion that we are in control? That illusion in turn is a creator of unrealistic expectations of self, God, society, Church, spouse, work etc. It can take a serious life crisis to break through this illusion and the unrealistic expectations it engenders. It is possible that some of us will never break through the illusion of control and the unreal expectations, no matter what crises we may be given.
Advent is a time to learn the art of waiting – waiting for and waiting upon. It is informed and enabled by the Spirit of God.
