Well – here we are – the FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT! Just a few days and we begin the great season of Christmas. The readings for today can be found at https://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/122009.shtml. Not sure if I’m going to be snowed in and that I won’t be able to actually “deliver” this Homily. If that’s the case, it will be just for you my faithful readers! Thanks for reading and your feedback – Fr Jim
HOMILY:
Just hearing the reporter’s words this Thursday afternoon made me stop, turn the volume up and pay attention: “Freed after 35 years – DNA test clears Florida Man.” Back in 1974, James Bain was arrested and convicted of a kidnaping and committing a horrible act of sexual abuse to a 9 year old boy. The 9 year old picked Bain out of a lineup… the jury didn’t believe Bain’s alibi that he had been home watching Television (that his sister had corraborated) he had remained in prison ever since.
It struck me, that this man went to prison a year after I was born. Being wrongly imprisoned for 35 years?, that’s the stuff of nightmares. How many nights did he go to bed in tears? How often did he hope that someone, ANYONE, would finally believe him – believe that he was innocent – that he didn’t do this horrible thing that he was convicted of doing? Finally, in the last few months as these DNA tests were conducted, did he wonder would there be some technicality, some glitch, some messed up evidence or faulty test that would dash this opportunity to be freed? Fortunately (and finally) everything came together. The judge signed the order freeing him and he walked out of the prison a free man Thursday.
As sad as this is that an innocent man lost 35 years in prison, as justifiably angry as he may have been – what makes this story so incredible was seeing him as he was released from prison – his absolute, radiating happiness. The smile on his face, the incredible joy. It kind of caught some by surprise, especially some reporters. As they asked questions and were probably trying to imagine how they would feel if this had happened to them – what emotion they would feel, one asked Mr. Bain, a pretty direct question. “After 35 years of false imprisonment – are you angry?” And he said “No I’m not angry, because I got God.”
He explained that the support of his family and his religious faith had helped him get through his ordeal.”[It] just was the right time for God to release me from this. I just had to be very patient for that… I cannot feel angry. I put all that in God’s hands,” he said.
Many who will hear this story will focus on how did he get wrongly convicted in the first place. Why did it take so long for his innocence to come to light? Or how many others, just like James Bain have been innocent for years and proclaiming their innocence only to be doubted and ignored? All of those are legitimate questions and things we should be asking. But in that questioning, we can miss an incredibly important thing for James Bain. While all those years were lost, Bain’s belief in God, his trust in God, his faith in God wasn’t. If there was ever a person we’d excuse for abandoning his faith after so much pain and suffering, Bain would seem to be on the top of that list. Yet, his family and his faith helped him endure and as he sees it, were essential in his freedom.
Often times, we have a story-book image of the Christmas story that has these angelic greetings setting these miraculous events into motion. Mary is told of her role in the plan of salvation. She visits her relative Elizabeth, who at an old age (after being labeled “barren”) is drawn into this story with the improbable news she was pregnant with the boy who would grow up to be John the Baptist.
While both women were faith-filled women. who embraced God’s will for their lives – despite how crazy it might have seemed to them – they had to be nervous. They had to be afraid. They had to even have had doubts.
Did they wonder “why me?” Did they get upset with how their own plans were fading in light of accepting God’s will? Did they even get impatient or angry at all the inconveniences, struggles, trials they had to endure? They probably had their moments. But like Mr. Bain, if Mary and Elizabeth were interviewed they might have said “I cannot feel angry. I put all that in God’s hands”
That’s the same challenge we’re faced with if we wish to be faithful disciples. As we encounter our own trials and struggles. When we’re not sure how the mysterious course of life events happening in our own lives figures in as a part of God’s plan, the devil messing with us or something else altogether.
But it’s not a matter of just people saying to themselves “trust in God and don’t be afraid.” A key part of this is that faith-filled people need other faith-filled people to be around. Mr. Bain credits his family who encouraged his trust in God through all those years. Perhaps that’s why as soon as Mary receives her incredible news that she would be bearing God’s Son Jesus, she set out and traveled in haste – to be with Elizabeth. These two women of faith needed to lean on each other (and would remain together for months) That didn’t mean they doubted God. Only a person of faith would be able to encourage another person of faith. They needed each other.
And so do we. We aren’t called to be lone rangers facing the twists and turns of our lives simply praying that a distant God will somehow take care of everything. St. Paul very matter-of-factly addresses us as Brothers and Sisters in the second reading. That isn’t meant to be a feel-good expression but rather a revelation for us. As God’s family, we find His presence is revealed, affirmed and demonstrated in many ways, especially when we support each other, especially when our reasonable doubts seem to be doing a number on the heart of faith.
Like Mary, we who are called to bear and give birth to Jesus Christ’s to the world today in the face of great challenges and difficulties need words of hope and encouragement. We too need to know that God continues to do miraculous things here and now in our time in our day. Mary believed. Elizabeth believed. Even a falsely imprisoned man believed. Will we be among those to hear Elizabeth’s words said to us -“Blessed are you who believed that was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled?”
