Light of the Word: Brief Reflections on the Sunday Readings

By Hans Urs von Balthasar

It is not only the Catholics who attend Sunday Mass, but also the priests who preach at Mass who feel overwhelmed by the three scripture readings in which for the most part only the first from the Old Testament and the third from the Gospel have any interconnection, while the second from the apostolic letters stands by itself. This book seeks to present the common theses that connect all three of the readings for Sundays and feasts of the Lord in the three year cycle of readings.

The reflections here are meant to be theological and spiritual suggestions that the one who is preaching can develop further and from which he can select individual perspectives. Rather than seeking immediately concrete applications, Fr. von Balthasar attempts to elucidate the content which is immediately present in the passages.

Organized by each Sunday and feast day of the liturgical year for years A, B, & C, these reflections are meant to be theological and spiritual suggestions that the one who is preaching can develop further and from which he can select individual perspectives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Sep 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781681492995

Hans Urs von Balthasar

Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) was a Swiss theologian widely regarded as one of the greatest theologians and spiritual writers of modern times. Named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, he died shortly before being formally inducted into the College of Cardinals. He wrote over one hundred books, including Prayer, Heart of the World, Mary for Today, Love Alone Is Credible, Mysterium Paschale and his major multi-volume theological works: The Glory of the Lord, Theo-Drama and Theo-Logic.

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TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

FATHER VON BALTHASAR based his sketches on the German and Latin lectionary texts. In the present translation, where German terminology in phrases set off in quotation marks by von Balthasar diverges significantly from the translations of the same passages in either the New American Bible or the English Lectionary for the Mass, I have translated the German and dropped the quotation marks. Where von Balthasar’s German phrases in quotation marks differ less significantly from the English language versions, I have translated them and retained the quotation marks.¹

One might also note that one of von Balthasars common metaphors is taken from one of his favorite areas of endeavor: music. The imagery he intends when he uses the term Auftakt (upbeat) is lost if the word is translated more generally as prelude, opening phase, or introduction, since an upbeat is the unaccented moment before the downbeat that launches the music. It is not the opening note, rather, it is the moment of anticipation and rhythm-setting that is necessary if an orchestra or ensemble is to make music together successfully. In light of this, I have translated Auftakt with the noun upbeat, even though this word is most often used as an adjective and with a completely different meaning in contemporary American English.

For the reader’s convenience, I have added references in instances where von Balthasar makes direct and extended allusions to Scripture passages outside the lectionary text at hand. Where Father von Balthasar’s references to other scriptures follow a divergent Vulgate numbering system, I have silently modified them to conform to the numbering used by the New American Bible and other modern versions.

—D.D.M.

INTRODUCTION

THE REFLECTIONS on the three Scripture readings of each Sunday Mass presented here are not intended to provide complete models for homilies or for personal meditation. Their purpose is to provide stimuli for homilies or personal meditation, stimuli among which each reader can choose according to taste. Above all I have attempted to draw the two readings (usually from the Old and New Testaments) and the Gospel into an inner coherence that seldom dawns on those attending a celebration of the Eucharist, since listeners may more often be confused than edified by hearing more than one text. As many people know, the passages from the Old Testament and the Gospel have for the most part been selected because they relate to each other. Since the second reading derives from a sequential reading of New Testament epistles, it occasionally is tangential to the line connecting the Gospel and the Old Testament reading. That explains the present attempt to lift out motifs that pervade all three readings and reveal an easily remembered thematic unity. Although the reflections thus provide for masses in which all three readings are heard, they can equally well be employed when only two are read. Given the purpose outlined above, the reader can understand why a more penetrating interpretation of the texts, including the Gospel readings, was not possible, although the attempt has been made to come to terms with the most important exegetical demands of each pericope. What is offered here is, of course, based on the assumption that even a homily directed at pastoral concerns of great immediacy will still be based on the readings that have been read, especially on the Gospel. Because the application of the readings will vary greatly depending on the age and character of those present, any such attempt at direct application has been avoided here in favor of emphasis on the central proclamations of the biblical revelation. In instances where the lectionary offers shorter versions of a reading, the reflection is always based on the full pericope, lest important themes fall into the cracks. Occasionally, however, even the full reading has been shaped in such a way that what follows or precedes it is essential to comprehension. In such instances we touch briefly on that which has been omitted from the lectionary selection. In any case, we offer here merely a quarry from which each person can cut to shape whatever suits his purpose.

—HANS URS VON BALTHASAR

YEAR A

[A] First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44 (29-44)

1. God comes. Before we can distinguish between God’s first and second advent, we must grasp the comprehensive proclamation of Advent and the stringent warning it contains: God is underway toward us. This was the developing premonition that pervades the Old Covenant, which expected that the arrival of the Messiah would bring with it the End-Time. It was John the Baptist’s direct premonition, for, according to all three of the synoptic Gospels, he wanted to do nothing else than prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness and announce a divisive judgment: Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees (Lk 3:9). That which would follow him would be God’s final discernment of history. All three readings point toward this arrival of God: they want to rouse us from sleep and indifference, keep us on standby, dressed for action, awaiting the Lord with flaming torches or oil-filled lamps. In the second reading Paul is particularly insistent: one can see the signs of God’s approach in one’s own lifetime, because he has been drawing closer to us ever since the time of our conversion. The Gospel insists firmly on the sort of vigilance that does not try to study earthly circumstances for hints of God’s coming, since God erupts into history vertically, from on high. Precisely because he comes at an hour when no one is expecting him, one has to be constantly expectant.

2. Expectancy. This necessary vigilance demands above all that one distinguish oneself from the routine of the unexpectant world. At most it has its own aims in mind, aims that have no real impact on daily patterns of eating and drinking and marrying, since people normally do these things without the slightest awareness that God’s advent might roll over them like the great Deluge. Paul calls this purely earthly activity the works of darkness, because it is not oriented toward the dawning light. He does not devalue earthly things: eating and drinking continue but not carousing and drunkenness; marriage continues, but without sexual excess and lust; work in the fields and at the mill remains but without quarreling and jealousy. Earthly life is regulated and restrained, reduced to necessities, when one expects God. This world’s activity is sleep, and it is high time to awake from it. Awakening itself is light's dawning, an equipping of oneself with armor of light to fight the urge to doze off into the God-forsaken business of the world.

3. In the light of the Lord. Isaiah’s great opening vision in the first reading reveals that those who expect God are a spiritual mountain whose light provides an orientation point for all nations. From this point alone can justice intervene in international strife, at this point alone is the incessant intra-worldly warfare quieted into God’s peace, here alone can the world that by itself is darkened walk in the light of the Lord. Of course, in the perspective of both Old and New Testaments, this does not take place without separation and judgment: one will be taken and the other left behind. For a deaf world, the very promise of a God who is coming contains a threat, yet a threat only in the sense of an admonition to be vigilant and ready. To the vigilant, God’s advent is no cause for fear: at the advent of God lift up your head, for your salvation is near (Lk 21:28).

[A] Second Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-9; Matthew 3:1-12

1.  The Spirit-filled One. God now comes in an earthly form, as a shoot from the stump of Jesse. Yet his coming is a unique and ultimate coming. According to the first reading, three things characterize this advent: (1) the fullness of the Lord’s Spirit which enables the coming one (2) to exercise discerning judgment in favor of the helpless and poor against the violent and wicked and (3) to complete a supra-terrestrial peace that transforms all of nature and mankind. The Spirit of wisdom and knowledge that fills the One who comes is poured out over the world so that the world is filled with knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea. When he judges, the Spirit-filled One practices that which he is and has; when he fills the world with his Spirit he distributes what he is and has. In the Bible, knowing God is no theoretical knowledge, rather, it is a drenching of the entire being with inward understanding of what God is. This knowledge is peace in God, participation in God’s peace.

2.  Baptism with Spirit and fire. The Gospel portrays the forerunner in the midst of his activity. He prepares the way for the coming One by hearing the confessions of sinners who are being converted and by baptizing them into the advent of the greater One who is to follow. They are being prepared for the coming One; no one dare rely merely on the past, on genealogical membership among the descendants of Abraham. The Baptist’s words, God can raise up children to Abraham from these very stones are oddly prophetic: for the Jews the Gentile nations are stones, and the coming Spirit-filled One can awaken them to become children of God. John falls down before him in the most profound humility, for he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire rather than with water. He will baptize with fire that is God himself, with the fire of divine love, which he comes to cast upon the earth, fire that will burn away all self-centeredness from souls. This same fire of love becomes a fiery judgment to those who will not love, who are chaff: The chaff will he burn in an unquenchable fire. God is a consuming fire, and whoever will not burn in the glow of his love will burn forever in that consuming fire. Love is far more than the morality of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Morality that does not fulfill itself and disappear into the Holy Spirit’s fire of love will not survive the threshing-floor’s winnowing.

3. Accept one another. The flame of love brought by the Spirit-bearer flashes up over Israel to embrace the world. The chosen Jews and the hitherto unchosen Gentiles who are now admitted to God’s people are brought into unity in this love. In the second reading Paul requires that both of these accept each other—because Christ has accepted us, and because Christ has done so, for the same reason Jews and Gentiles must accept each other: to glorify the Creator who has created everything with reference to his Son. By fulfilling all prophecies in his earthly existence the Son makes present God’s covenant righteousness, and also God’s mercy toward all who know nothing of God’s covenant. The Spirit-filled One whose advent Isaiah glimpsed will establish a genuinely divine peace on earth. If, as the prophet hoped, the nations should seek out this shoot out of the stump of Jesse, the Spirit of the knowledge of God would also fill them, a Spirit in whose peace shall be no harm or ruin.

[A] Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 35:1-6, 10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11

1.  Are you it? It is part of the Baptist’s approaching witness-to-the-death that even in prison he must put up with the darkness God has given him. He had expected a mighty One who would baptize with Spirit and fire. And now there appears in the Gospel this gentle One who will not quench a smoldering wick (Is 42:3). Jesus calms John’s disquiet by showing him that the prophecy is being fulfilled in himself, in gentle miracles that still call for trusting faith: Blessed is the man who finds no stumbling block in me. Perhaps the darkness that burdens John as a witness to Christ is the very reason why Jesus praises him to the crowd: he really is what he understood himself to be, the messenger sent in advance of Jesus to prepare the way. John referred to himself as a mere voice in the wilderness ringing out the marvel of the coming One. The least among those belonging to the coming Kingdom is greater than John, who assessed himself as belonging to the Old Covenant, yet, as friend of the Bridegroom he is showered with the light of new grace as he humbly makes way for Christ. On icons he joins Mary the Mother, who also comes from the Old Covenant yet steps across into the New Covenant, the two of them at the right and left hand of the world’s Judge.

2.  The desert shall exult. In the first reading Isaiah describes the transformation of the desert into fertile fields at the coming of God. See, here is your God! The desert is the world that God has not yet visited, but now he is on his way. Blind, deaf, lame, and mute is the man whom God has not yet visited, yet now his senses open wide and his limbs loosen up. As the Psalms and the Wisdom literature depict, the idols people venerated instead of the living God are themselves blind, deaf, and dumb, and those who venerate them are their equals. These idol-worshipers had turned away from the living God, but now those ransomed by the Lord shall return, shall be freed from spiritual death to find true life. After all, that is what Jesus is alluding to in today’s Gospel when he describes his deeds.

3.  Patience. But the return to God at his approach to us requires patient waiting, as James insists in the second reading. We are given the example of a farmer and the completely ordinary attitude his occupation requires. He awaits the fruit of the earth that grows of its own accord for him, produce that grows in a manner the farmer does not understand—according to one of Jesus’ parables (Mk 4:27). The farmer does not try to conjure up the rain, rather he waits patiently until the soil receives the winter and spring rains. James realizes that Christian patience is no leisurely waiting, realizes that it requires strengthened hearts—not through discipline for discipline’s sake but because the coming of the Lord is at hand. This is a patience that does not hurry anything, does not artificially accelerate things, but rather, in faith, faces up to everything God has decreed (cf. Is 28:16). If we know that the judge is at the gate we still have no right to throw the gate open. Wisely James refers impatient Christians who could not wait for the Lord’s coming back to the prophets, and their steady patience. One could just as properly point to Mary’s patience as she awaited the Advent. A pregnant woman can and ought not hasten anything. The Church too is pregnant, but she does not know when she will give birth.

[A] Fourth Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 7:10-14; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24

1.  Mary in the twilight. Mary finally makes her appearance in the Gospel, Mary, the door by which God will enter the world, She was found with child even though she had never slept with her betrothed. She is the vessel of tranquility and thus she is not the one to announce the wordless affair taking place between her and the Holy Spirit. Joseph, in whose house she does not yet live, notices what is happening. It seems impossible that others would not also have noticed. Talk about her is unavoidable, but she neither wishes to nor can silence it. People will eventually come to the consensus, as the Gospel tells us, that the child is Joseph’s. Yet something about this child does not quite make sense. God is not in a hurry. Decades later the Gospels will cast light on the secret. For the time being Joseph remains unenlightened and filled with the most profound disquiet. How could he on his own have come up with the idea that God himself was underway within his bride? Joseph’s plans to divorce her quietly correspond to Mary’s quietness. Yet he would thereby expose her to shame. Thus, at the last moment, he is enlightened and instructed to take Mary to himself. God has time.

2.  Jesus in the twilight. The second reading, from the opening of the letter to the Romans, has embarrassed many readers. Considered according to the flesh to be a descendant of David, only by his Resurrection from the dead is Jesus viewed as the Son of God in power. Yet both assertions agree completely: as the son of David he is Israel’s Messiah; only after the Resurrection, after stooping to life on earth, after his slave’s obedience unto death on the Cross, does he reveal himself as the Son of God in power. In light of his unheard of teaching and miraculous power people are uneasy: Is that not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? (Mk 6:3). Is that Joseph’s son? Did we not know his father and his mother? (Jn 6:42). When he set himself equal to God, that alone was cause enough to seek to kill him (Jn 5:17-18) and eventually to murder him, He ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God (Jn 19:7). The Father does not intervene. It is all part of the divine plan. God has time.

3.  The prophecy in twilight. The prophecy in the first reading has been called the most controverted passage in the Bible (Buber). In it God offers to give King Ahaz a sign; he refuses it because he does not want to tempt God. Isaiah scolds him for that and God gives him a sign anyway. No exegete has succeeded in unraveling the meaning of the sign itself. Who is the young woman or virgin (the word can mean either)? Who is the child who is to be called Immanuel, God-with-us? Is that a prophecy of salvation or damnation? God has time. Not until the Greek translation of the Old Testament, long before Christ, do we find a clear reference to a virgin, together with the clear expectation that the God-with-us refers to the awaited Messiah. And only after the unpretentious event took place in Nazareth did the ultimate meaning of the prophecy become clear. Later still the Gospel writers discovered the true coherence of it all through the Spirit’s illumination. Even when revealing the meaning of his word God is unhurried.

[ABC] Christmas, Vigil Mass

Isaiah 62:1-5; Acts 13:16-17, 22-25; Matthew 1:1-25

1.  The promised king. The texts of the vigil Mass for Christmas center on the following theme: Israel’s promised Redeemer will be its King. In the concept of a king two things are involved: the king representatively encompasses the nation yet also gives it transcendent meaning and direction. Three characteristics dominate the genealogy of Jesus as it is presented in the Gospel. First, it emphasizes Jesus’ descent from David and his ancestry in Abraham, the founder of the nation and the nation’s faith. Second, it underscores the reigns of Israels kings in succession yet omits those who were wicked. Third, we find an unusual cluster of names of women and mothers: Tamar, Ruth, Bathsheba, ultimately, Mary. The Davidic line ends with Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom the Messiah descends. A Jewish father who acknowledges a child as his own is considered that child’s legal father. Joseph does this, following the angel’s instructions. That inserts Jesus into the royal line, and the Magi will then inquire about the newborn King of the Jews.

2. The royal marriage. The text of the first reading also concentrates on this theme, connecting it with the theme of God’s marriage with the chosen people, a marriage that shines like a light into the entire world, so that all kings shall behold your radiant glory. In God’s final turning toward Israel, which takes place in the sending of his Son, Israel becomes a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem held by your God. Yet this is no external bestowal of power, rather, it establishes an utterly intimate love affair as when a young man marries a virgin. . . and as a bridegroom delights in his bride. The divine power that the nation takes to heart in Jesus, the power that permits it to partake of God’s royal power, is the power of love, the love in which God pours all his matchless power into the creature who is thereby raised from a simple maiden to Queen: Jesus’ humanity is just as worthy of worship as his divinity.

3.  Homage. In the second reading Paul describes how men chosen by God behave in light of their having been graced by him. God alone has exalted the chosen people. Already as strangers in Egypt, Israel owed itself to his outstretched arm. Then he raised up David as your king. This exaltation stems from God alone, and it takes place in order that the one thereby exalted might fulfill my every wish. Kingship by God’s grace remains nothing but service to God. The King from David’s line will fulfill this in that he, the King of the universe, is also the One who does not his will but the will of the Father in everything. This service comes to completion in the submissive attitude of the final forerunner, who declares himself unworthy to unfasten the sandals on the feet of the Highest King who will follow him. Even in Revelation it is those who have been exalted to royal dignity who are the most profound worshipers of the eternal King.

[ABC] Christmas, Mass at Midnight

Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

1. The sign of the child. For the central act of world history God’s providence provides the requisite perfect constellation. According to the Gospel, not only must the Messiah descend via Joseph from David’s lineage, but he must also be born in David’s city. The emperor’s decree must obey this purpose. To satisfy the prophecy, a child is born to us, the Messiah must be born as a child, and only because he is a child will his dominion be vast. The child has to be born into earthly poverty (that there is no room at the inn is no accident) in order to partake of the world’s poverty from the outset. And, even though all heavenly splendor spreads itself above the brutal poverty of stable and manger, the great hymn of praise merely serves to point simple folk toward an even poorer sign. There is only one proof that Israel’s finest hour of consummation is at hand: a child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. In a sort of vertical universality complete unity and reciprocity rule the most sumptuous splendor above and the crassest poverty below.

2. Warfare is crushed. Immense messianic joy sounds forth in Isaiah’s prophecy found in the first reading, as light shines on mankind dwelling in darkness. Humanity rejoices at the birth of the child as one rejoices when receiving a festive gift. The child is "born for us and is given to us". Everything he will be and do is for us. The prophecies about the Messiah on David’s throne that are now fulfilled tell us that unimaginable peace and perfect covenantal righteousness have finally dawned now and forever. Because it has the power to eliminate warfare, such a peace was previously unimaginable; in order to eliminate warfare, the new ruler must carry both the name God-Hero and Prince of Peace. And Jesus will say that he has come both to bring peace and the sword, but a sword whose power and task it is to destroy war and bring about peace forever. This is a new kind of universality that exceeds all the powers and abilities of men: warring on behalf of the child will be the path to his Kingdom of peace. Death is swallowed up in victory (1 Cor 15:54) and war is consumed by peace.

3.  To save all men. The final, horizontal, universality is announced in the second reading, from Titus. It expands the messianism of the child beyond Israel to reach all mankind. The people cleansed for God himself will no longer be one nation among many. Instead, all people anywhere in the world who decide to leave behind wickedness in order to follow Christ will belong to that cleansed people. Thus it is that, here at Christmas, our glance is directed toward the Cross, toward Jesus’ surrender of himself "for us [pro nobis], to redeem us from all unrighteousness (v. 14). God’s descent into poverty at Christmas is merely the conductor’s upbeat for what would be completed on the Cross and at Easter—not merely the redemption of Israel but the salvation of all mankind. As the Church Fathers put it: To be able to die he became man."

[ABC] Christmas, Mass at Dawn

Isaiah 62:11-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:15-20

1.  The confirmation. In the Gospel the shepherds obey the angel’s instructions. It is not enough that they believe the angel’s announcement is true, rather, they must also confirm it in their own experience. The entire story deals with this confirmation: first the decision they reach among themselves: Come, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this event. Then, having confirmed things for themselves, they tell what they have experienced so that their own confirmation becomes a confirmation for those who had heard the angel and heavenly choir. Thus not only the shepherds but all who heard of it were astonished at the report given them by the shepherds. Finally, as the shepherds return home, we are once more reminded explicitly that they thanked God both for the angelic apparition and their experience at the manger, because all they had heard and seen was in accord with what had been told them. If we pay a bit of attention in our Christian life, we will find that we are not asked merely for naked faith, but that we continually receive confirmation that faith makes sense, that we are on the right path of God even in the midst of drab routine. Since such confirmations may be quiet and plain, a person who is expecting a tangible sign may not see God’s nod. That is why he should imitate Mary, who reflected on all that had happened.

2.  And she reflected on these things. Mary treasures everything in her heart. She forgets nothing that has to do with the child. She knows that everything has meaning for her and for her mission. If one holds on to all the threads, in the end everything that takes place within a Christian’s lifetime will yield a meaningful fabric. If one preserves what has happened and tries to extract its deeper meaning, he will not be unprepared for the unexpected. Mary’s ongoing contemplation of every event in her child’s life is not without significance for the constant renewal and deepening of her Yes—all the way to the Cross.

3.  Justified by grace. Both of the first two readings reveal how much the confirmations we experience are pure gifts of God. Our own deeds and striving would yield nothing if we did not have the grace, through the sacraments and renewal in the Holy Spirit, to receive and perceive God’s mercy. All of our existence is so permeated by his grace that we cannot merely look lazily and haphazardly toward a life after death but must, in firm Christian hope, anticipate eternal life with the living God. And the daughter of Zion is told that she should look forward to the coming salvation as an already accomplished reality. For she too is given confirmation: already she can see the first of God’s trophies preceding him, the redeemed of the Lord. For the people of the Old Covenant this meant that the prophets constantly confirmed that God really was on his way to us. For the Church this means that the saints within her tell her that God’s Word in Jesus Christ makes sense—it can be and is lived. From this confirmation Christian hope draws strength.

[ABC] Christmas, Mass during the Day

Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18

1.  In the beginning the Word becomes flesh. The complete fullness of the divine plan of salvation is spread out before us in the powerful prologue to John’s Gospel. To be sure we find within the story the witness who, as forerunner, points to that which is greatest, but what is greatest is the entry into the world of the One who was with God at the beginning before the whole world and who, as God, created, brought to life, and enlightened everything in the world. Christmas is not an event within history but is rather the invasion of time by eternity. So too Easter is not merely an event within history but is the Resurrected One’s exodus from history into eternity. The law given through Moses was within history, but as a whole it too pointed ahead to the true expositor of God, to the only one who is God and who has returned to the bosom of the Father, the One who has expounded God exactly as he is, namely, as grace and truth. Truth means God is like that! and grace means God is pure love freely given. Today this First of All came into the world, into his own world, the world he created. Even if many do not recognize and receive him, those of us who do believe and love have been given the grace to receive him and, through him, in him, and with him, to become children of God. Christmas is not only his birth, it must also be our birth from God with him.

2.  Today I have begotten you. The second reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, speaks in similar language of the divinity of the Word made man. Where John emphasizes the Alpha more, here the accent is placed on the Omega: many words of God preceded this Incarnation. In this, the final age, at the end of history, in the Omega, the Father has brought everything together in a single word. But this origin and consummation of all things is an event of today. In God there is neither past nor present, only eternal Today, and this eternal Today becomes present in the temporal. That means not only that all the past, all that belongs to the Old Covenant, has always been the dawning of this Today, rather, it also means that, in God, the Today of the invasion of the eternal event can never become a matter of the past. The Now of God’s coming into the world is not new and relevant merely at each recurring Christmas celebration, rather, there can be no moment of an ordinary day in which it is not a present reality. The feasts merely remind us forgetful people that God’s arrival in history is always taking place right now. The Lord who is always coming remains constantly newly arriving, he never departs in order to come again. This is worth thinking about in regard to his eucharistic advent.

3.  All the ends of the earth will behold salvation. In the first reading the prophet adds two things: first, the existence of bearers of glad tidings who announce the Lord’s coming. Without the messengers’ constant cries and shouts of joy we might forget how real and immediate the Lord’s coming is. The prophets were messengers, Holy Scripture is a messenger, and, in the Church, the saints and everyone who speaks under the Holy Spirit’s leading are messengers. The second point is that the Church’s message of joy is one that is open to the world. It is no secret doctrine learned in esoteric circles. Instead the Lord bares his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God. No part of Christ’s revelation is hidden: Jesus will tell Pilate: I have spoken publicly to the world, in synagogue and temple where all the Jews gather. I have said nothing in secret (Jn 18:20). The depth of his revelation is, from the beginning, a sacred open secret.

[A] Holy