A reflection on the daily readings, for Friday of the Fourth Week of Advent, by Father Perry.
+ It is, perhaps, a little bit dangerous to make too much of a word in the Bible, since we are always dealing with translations.
One comes to mind. Matthew 5:48 says: “You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
But, my esteemed scripture professor told us in scripture class that that was a poor translation and that the better translation reads: “You must be perfected, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
He told us that the little “ED”at the end of the word “perfect” made all of the difference in the world.
It made it clear who was doing the perfecting.
To be perfect and to be perfected were completely different realities.
And to be perfected was to allow God’s grace and blessings and presence to work on us and do grace-filled things to us.
This was allowing ourselves to be loved.
It sounds like what God is attempting to say and do to the Israelites in the book of Malachi.
And without trying to make too big a deal out of it, it might explain why Malachi would use two words that, at least on one level, would seem to be canceling each other out.
He describes the day upon which the Lord will come as a “Great and a terrible” day.
It seems a tab bit contradictory for a day to be great and at the same time terrible.
But, for what it is worth, the people in this book of Malachi were doing everything wrong; it smacks of always cheating or doing a halfway job.
They offered sacrifices, but giving God not the best but — the imperfect — and saving the best for themselves.
Kind of like using imitation ice cream instead of the real thing. And evidence that this was so is revealed in the need to “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of their children to their fathers.”
What happened to “Honor your father and your mother!”?
Malachi lines itself up as another book to call people back to God.
It announces, somewhat like little Annie in the musical “Annie,” “The sun will come out tomorrow.”
But in this case, we might want to sing: “The Son will come out tomorrow” — or at least the next day on the 25th — as we celebrate the birth and the entrance of the Son of God in Christmas.
And more proof of that is shared in the scene that takes place on the eighth day after the birth of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son; and the one who until that day was yet to be named was named on the day of his circumcision.
On that day when he was dedicated to God and received his name, the people approached Elizabeth with the question (and really more like a statement), were they going to name the child “Zechariah” after his father?
And since they would not take Elizabeth’s word when she told them his name would be John, they went directly to Zechariah and asked the same.
And what a moment that was! Still mute, Zechariah wrote the name John on a tablet and at that moment, his mouth was freed and he could speak.
Amazing! Miraculous! It was certainly a great and at the same time a terrible moment in that God’s hand and God’s presence were certainly there and in that moment, and their amazement knew no bounds.
Perhaps from the same Latin root the word terrific, in this case, would be preferable to terrible.
They could only wonder: “What, then, will this child be?”
And if Annie were there she would be singing, no doubt — TOMORROW! TOMORROW! TOMORROW!
And we all know that is so. No wonder Jesus would later say: “Of all men born of a woman, none was greater than John.”
He was the game changer, for he was able to point out Jesus as “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
And to the extent that we let it happen, surely God will be doing “a lot of perfecting in US if we, too, just allow ourselves to be graced, and blessed, and loved!
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
