The Peace Pulpit

I do find these lessons very powerful in getting us to understand who Jesus really is and what he expects of us. When you look at the gospel lesson, it is suggested - by some at least - that John the Baptist really didn't have any doubts about Jesus; he knew who Jesus was, what he was doing and why, and so he just sent his disciples [to Jesus] for their benefit, because they were reluctant to leave him and follow Jesus. He wanted them to go and be really convinced.

As we are all aware, Advent is the season of hope as we prepare to celebrate once more the coming of Jesus at the time of his birth. When something has already happened historically, it's hard to look forward to it again. However, as we know, Jesus came into our human history 2,000 years ago to bring about a transformation of our world, to bring about the reign of God as he announced at the beginning of his public life, "The reign of God is at hand."

Recently I have had the experience of writing to various bishops in the United States to alert them to the fact that I was coming to do a public speech of one kind or another in their diocese. As I have received answers from those bishops, sometimes it was a very welcoming answer, and sometimes the bishop would say, "No, it's better if you do not come into my diocese because you can be controversial. You cause too much controversy."

[Editor's Note: Bishop Gumbleton delivered this homily in Austria on Sept. 23. He was part of events leading up to the beatification of Franz Jägerstätter. A report of the beatification, which happened Oct. 26, will be available in the next issue of NCR.]

In that short passage from the letter of St. Paul to Timothy, besides giving Timothy encouragement and trying to urge Timothy to be very faithful to his task as a disciple, St. Paul also makes a remark that I think is very crucial for us. He tells us, "The gospel I labor for and even wear chains for like an evildoer, but the word of God is not chained."