Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The presence of John the Baptist accompanied us through the season of Advent and we met him again on our liturgical and spiritual journey on the feast of the Baptism of Jesus. The figure of the Baptist is mysterious and captivating. He was the Precursor of Christ, not only two thousand years ago but in a sense also in our day. He is the friend of the Bridegroom. The voice, which makes us hear the Word which introduces us to the mystery of the redemption, who helps us to respond to the call to conversion, with humility and love. He helps us understand that the human person, every person in front of the Lord Jesus stands before the greatest mystery of our existence: the Mystery of the Man God!
We cannot stand before Jesus as if he were not what he is: God from God, true God from true God! Only a person who has a relationship of humility with the Lord is able to receive the faith which illuminates the mind and warms the heart. Atheism is the product of human pride which renders man unable to believe because he is closed to the truth, to humility.
Truth-humility cannot be separated! John the Baptist is the herald of truth because he is the herald of humility and vice versa. His words are fire which desires to burn any remnant of pride deposited in the hearts of his disciples, who are disarmed in front of the figure of Jesus, his apostolic success, his truly surprising manner of announcing the Kingdom of God: a Messiah whom they had imagined differently.
The Gospel speaks of this “crisis” of the disciples of the Baptist, which we might call “crisis of humility ”, because it touches this fundamental disposition of the human soul before the mystery of God who reveals himself in Jesus. The Gospel says: “so they went to John and said, 'Rabbi, the man who was with you on the far side of the Jordan, the man to whom you bore witness, is baptising now, and everyone is going to him.' John replied: 'No one can have anything except what is given him from heaven. 'You yourselves can bear me out. I said, "I am not the Christ; I am the one who has been sent to go in front of him." 'It is the bridegroom who has the bride; and yet the bridegroom's friend, who stands there and listens to him, is filled with joy at the bridegroom's voice. This is the joy I feel, and it is complete. He must grow greater, I must grow less.’ ”(Jn 3, 26-31).
These are among the strongest words and most moving testimony with regard to the identity of Christ, his priceless greatness compared with our littleness.
The fact that this warning was addressed by the Baptist to his disciples who were prepared to welcome the Messiah makes us realise the insidious nature of the temptation to enter into “crisis of humility”: refusing to recognise that “everything is grace”, that God's gifts do not belong to us, that “'No one can have anything except what is given him from heaven”…
How often the disciple thinks he is the teacher; the servant the master. John the Baptist knew well that the original sin was pride, a desire to possess the gifts of God separating them from their origin and identity as gifts, starting with freedom! How dangerous it is for the believer to forget the nothing he is and everything that God is. That original temptation is ever ready to arise in our soul. How good it is for us to say now and then, “you alone Lord are everything!” Right at the beginning of the spiritual journey of Catherine of Sienna, the Lord said: “do you know daughter, who you are and who I am? If you know these two things, you will be happy. You are not, and I am who is. If you hold this knowledge in your soul the enemy will not be able to mislead you, you will be safe from all his threats; you will never accept to do any thing contrary to my commandments and you will have no difficulty in obtaining abundant grave, truth and light ” (Raimondo da Capua, La vita di S. Caterina da Siena, I, X, 92, ed. Cantagalli).
Although with different words, John the Baptist offered his disciples the same teaching: “He must grow greater, I must grow less”; in order to make way for the Everything He is, we who are nothing must forget ourselves. This is the extraordinary dynamic of the conversion announced by the Baptist and repeated by Jesus: lose oneself in order to find God, become little in order to be great, be the least in order to become the first in the Kingdom of Heaven!
The path of humility teaches us to see God's gifts in ourselves and in others, a sign of the goodness He pours into the hearts of his creatures. Those who follow the example of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and John the Baptist, will be open to joyous testimony of God's gifts and remove from their soul all trace of jealously and rivalry, envy and ambition, because they will understand that the only true greatness lies in allowing to grow in their soul not self, but the only True Great One. God! And of this, Mary is the greatest example. (Agenzia Fides 16/1/2008; righe 56, parole 882)
