First Reading: Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10
Responsorial: Psalm 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10
Second Reading: James 5:7-10
Gospel Passage: Matthew 11:2-11

Roses in Winter
by Msgr. Richard Henning

Nearly five hundred years ago, the Virgin Mary appeared to the Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac. Juan Diego was a poor man and one of the indigenous people conquered by the Spanish Empire. When he went to the Bishop with word of the appearance, the Bishop asked that Juan Diego return to the site for proof of the authenticity of his claims. As the famous story goes, The Virgin instructed Juan Diego to gather roses in his cloak and deliver them to the Bishop. When Juan Diego opened his cloak to release the roses, the inside of the cloak had an image of the Virgin Mary. That image, known today throughout the Americas, depicted Mary with the brown skin of the Mestizo Indians. The clear message was that she identified with these conquered and marginalized children of God. The dual miracle of the roses growing in the chill of winter and the beautiful and meaningful image of Mary did much to bring the indigenous peoples of Mexico to faith in Christ. It also prophetically challenged two distinct peoples, Spanish and Indian, to see their common humanity and their common call to faith.
 
The passage from the Prophet Isaiah for this Sunday, Gaudete Sunday, announces joyful tidings. The people of Israel had experienced the trauma of war and conquest. They had been led off into exile, fated to live in poverty at the margins of the seemingly all powerful Babylonian Empire. In their struggle to survive as a nation, despair must have stalked them. They must have felt the temptation to give up, to blend in, to accept defeat and learn to be cynical realists in a cruel world. Isaiah calls the people back to trust in the Lord. He is teaching them to hope once again, revealing to them the beauty of life and the power to be found in faith. His primary message is that they are to be delivered. Their exile will end and the Lord will return them to the Land of Israel. But their despair goes beyond the loss of homes and wealth. In a sense, they have lost themselves, and so Isaiah’s tiding speak of more than just the return to their homeland. He presents a vision of a transformed world. The desert will bloom with flowers, creation itself will thrill to the presence of God, the suffering will be restored, and the weak strengthened. Given the depth of joy announced in this vision, the Psalm that follows bursts with praise of God’s gracious care of those crushed by life or human cruelties.
 
The reading from the Letter of James addresses another suffering community. It too inspires hope, but rather than paint an ecstatic vision of nature transformed, this passage looks to the everyday experience of the farmer to counsel patience. The Christian community found itself in an ambiguous situation. Believers knew the power of Christ in their lives, but they still lived in a world that rejected them and their faith. They felt themselves exiles of another sort, strangers in a strange land. So James teaches them patience and the organic nature of the kingdom which brings life.
 
The passage from Matthew pays tribute to the prophetic role of John the Baptist, but its primary focus in on the ministry of Jesus. John, imprisoned and close to death, longs for the hope and joy of knowing that God has visited His people. He sends his disciples to Jesus so that they may see and believe in the Promised One of God. It is painful and beautiful to contemplate Jesus’ words being shared with John in his imprisonment. Isaiah’s promise of return to the Land was fulfilled centuries before, but Israel had awaited the larger vision of a restored, grace-filled world. They awaited flowers in the desert and the healing of suffering and injustice. Now John and His disciples know the transforming truth. The moment has come for the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the deaf to hear. It is no longer a matter of liberating an occupied country, this is news of the renewal of creation and its restoration to the original intention of the Creator.
 
Roses growing on a frozen winter hillside are a miracle of color and life in the darkness. That gift brought joy to Juan Diego and healing to his suffering people. Gaudete Sunday offers us roses in winter: color, and life, and joy in the gray and cold. We hear the joyful tidings of God’s presence in our midst and the possibility of renewal. If our exile has tempted us to despair, now is the moment to “be strong” and “fear not.” Our exile is at an end, we are to be restored to God, to one another, and to ourselves.