HOMILY FOR MASS OF THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (YEAR A)
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 7 DECEMBER 2025
During the week before Christmas, as we celebrate with the Christmas at the Cathedral each night in Sydney, the Church sings a series of ancient Advent acclamations known as “The O antiphons.” At Vespers each night the Church prays to Christ to come, hailing Him with a different title each time.
In the middle ages these antiphons were collected together into a single Advent hymn, “Veni, Veni Emmanuel,” which was translated in the nineteenth century as “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” And so, on 17th December we will cry out “O Sapientia: O come thou Wisdom from on high.” On the 18th “O Adonai: O come thou holy Lord of might.” On the 20th He will be invoked as “O Clavis David: O come, thou Key of David, come.” On the 21st “O Oriens: O come, thou dayspring, come and cheer.” Next, we’ll greet Him as “O Rex Gentium: O come, desire of nations.” And finally, on the last night of Advent, in the antiphon “O Immanuel,” the Church cries out to Christ to “come and save captive Israel.” It is the plaintive cry of all humanity longing for its Saviour, the cry of every human heart as empty as an O, hungering for redemption.
Now, the antiphon for the 19th December is taken from today’s beautiful first reading (Isa 11:1-10). “O Radix Jesse: O come, thou rod of Jesse’s stem.” Following Isaiah’s promise of “a shoot that springs from the stock of Jesse”, we sing Jesus’ genealogy, all the way back to Adam and to Abraham, but especially to Jesse of Bethlehem, King David’s father.
In sacred art we see a tree planted in Jesse, with kings David and Solomon and the rest of Jesus’ family tree growing out of him, all the way up to the Virgin and Child. In calling Him “shoot of Jesse,” we mean firstly that Jesus is the fulfilment of Israel’s hopes, heir to promises made to David, our eternal king.
But our text tells us more about Him and so more about our Advent hopes. It says, secondly, that the Spirit of the Lord rests on Him and that His coming means an outpouring of that Spirit’s seven gifts—of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and God-fearing. Our Advent herald, John the Baptist, identifies Jesus as that person, as he sees the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus in Jordan, anointing Him as the Messiah, and as he prophesies that Jesus will baptise not just with water but with that fiery Holy Spirit (Mt 3:1-12).
Thirdly, the effects of the coming of this Branch of Jesse, Isaiah tells us, are vindication for the innocent, just desserts for the wicked, but above all harmony in a hitherto violent world. Isaiah’s images of peace are especially romantic: “The wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid, bull and lion feed together… cow and bear make friends, calf and cub snuggle up. The lion prefers straw to meat, and the children play safely with snakes.” Beautiful images of a world of no more violence, where nature cooperates as it should. It’s a universal longing. Every civilisation has prayed for such harmony; even secular culture dreams such dreams, as it aspires to world peace, conserved ecology and more stable climate.
But how is such harmony ever to be achieved? The prophet points in a most unexpected direction: “a little boy will lead them,” Isaiah says, “the shoot of Jesse, a signal to the peoples.”
“Who is this shoot, this little boy so long promised?” Israel asked and humanity keeps on inquiring. He is “the One who comes after me,” the Baptist responds today, “so much more than me, the all-powerful Creator made creature, one whose sandals I’m unfit to carry. He is Jesus, the Christmas babe: let me, let the Church, point Him out to you.”
John it is who points out that coming Boy. Now John, to be frank, was not a cathedral parish sort of guy. He was an ancient Beatnik, living in the wilds, dressed in home spun camelhair, and eating a very strange diet indeed. And if his habits left much to be desired, so did his conversation: it seems to have consisted largely in calling people snakes and hypocrites and telling them to shape up or they would burn in hell! Diplomatic and pastoral skills were not his strong points. He would probably not have made our invite list for the first Christmas party!
Yet this strange figure is our Advent saint. He is the climax of centuries of waiting for the Messiah. He speaks the language of the prophets, by then long silent. He calls, like they did, for repentance, for urgently turning back to God. He convicts the world of being in sin’s power and declares Christ the only Lamb of God who can take away the sin of the world.
That is why John was a Baptist. It is not that he belonged to a Protestant denomination! No, baptism was customary at that time for Gentile converts to Judaism, giving them an Exodus experience of passing through the Red Sea. But John’s message was that not only for converting pagans: Israel, too, needed to be washed clean of the sin of the world. John was, we might say, the first “Catholic,” by which we mean universalist, for he was the first to affirm, with all possible vigour, that Jews and Gentiles were as one before God. He was the first to identify that the Rod of Jesse, the cross of Jesus, would be the ensign for all peoples. He was the one to realise that God can raise up children for Abraham from the very stones on the river’s bank.
All are sinners and so all need a Saviour, John insists, not just the bad guys in our newsfeeds, not just villains in some other country, community, family. The call to get to know ourselves, face up to our foibles and failings, and seek forgiveness, especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation: this is the Baptist’s call to every age. If we do not believe that we are damaged by nature and choice, that we have our limitations and need a Saviour, then we do not really believe in Christmas. It means the inn of our hearts is as closed as it was when Joseph and Mary first came knocking…
John the Baptist still sings out “O Come, O Come Emmanuel, Come O Branch of Jesse’s stem.” It is the cry of every empty, O-shaped heart. Unless we hearken to that Advent chorus, God’s coming to earth will be no more than a myth of cosmic tourism. This will just be “the holiday season”, a time for office parties, family quarrels, and overindulgence in turkey, champers and unwanted presents. Without John and his plaintive hymn, we might, like so many at the first Christmas, miss it altogether…
INTRODUCTION TO MASS OF THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (YEAR A)
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 7 DECEMBER 2025
Welcome to St Mary’s Basilica Sydney for the Solemn Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent.
I acknowledge concelebrating with me my twin by episcopal ordination, Most Rev. Julian Porteous, Archbishop Emeritus of Hobart.
There are now only 18 days until the Babe of Bethlehem arrives, so let us sweep out the cribs of our hearts to make them ready to receive the Christ-child…