We have all experienced a time, speaking to a friend
or acquaintance, when our fellow converser takes his eyes off ours for a
moment, glancing over our shoulder. The reason is usually nothing more than
another person walking into the room or a slight disturbance calling their
attention. Yet trifling as it may be, when they look, we look. It is instinctual. We follow their gaze.
This Sunday—Gaudete Sunday—we remember as we do
frequently this time of year the “patron saint of Advent,” John the Baptist.
Donning rose instead of camelhair we nevertheless rejoice together with the
Baptist, for the Messiah is coming soon. Our hearts heed his ever pertinent proclamation to prepare the way of the Lord through penance and impatience.
This Sunday, we gaze upon the Baptist, but seek him not. Our gaze awaits the
Lord.
When the Lord comes, however, there is neither tension nor
confusion. As John the Evangelist writes, “The next day again John was standing
with two of his disciples and he looked
at Jesus as he walked and said ‘Behold the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples
heard him say this, and they followed Jesus” (Jn. 1:35). John exits the stage just moments after he enters—He must increase, I must decrease.
The disciples, gazing upon the Baptist, see his eyes
dart from their own. Instinctually, they look. “Behold the Lamb of God!” John
transfers their gaze as a window transfers light; we do not marvel at the window,
only at the object illumined. Just like that the disciples follow Our Lord, and
the Baptist departs—well done, good and faithful servant.
That is all it takes: a captivating gaze upon the Beloved.
As French theologian Jean Corban writes:
The starting point is the gaze which John the Baptist
directs at Jesus… It is at this point that two of John’s disciples begin to
follow Jesus. Who will ever grasp the depth of this gaze of the bridegroom’s
friend, a gaze so purified by expectation and so communicative of divine love
that his two disciples leave him, ‘drawn’ by this man before whom their master
retires into the background?
We wait for the Lord, and when he comes, we place our
steadfast gaze upon him. That is all he asks. With such a gaze John the Baptist
fulfilled his entire mission, the woman at the well thirsted no more, and Peter
walked upon water. The Christian mission, heavy laden with crosses, is rather
simple: gaze upon the Lord. Only thus will our task be easy and our burden
light.
John Vianney recalled frequently witnessing a humble
parishioner sitting in the pews, gazing upon the Blessed Sacrament. He uttered
no words, read no devotionals. The cure of Ars inquired one day “What do you
say to Our Lord in prayer?” “Nothing,” the man responded, “I look at him, and
he looks at me.”
As we prepare our hearts for the coming of the
Messiah, may we not grow weary or anxious with so much to do in so little time.
Let us instead grow impatient for Christmas like children—like the Baptist. For
our only task is to behold.
+JMJ+
