11 December 2025 – Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
Isaiah 41:13-20; Matthew 11:11-15
Homily
John the Baptist, from his prison, had sent his disciples to Jesus to ask Him if He was the one who was to come or if they should wait for another. Jesus replied, saying, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen – the lame walk, the deaf hear, etc.’, referring explicitly to several of Isaiah's prophecies that we have heard in the first reading of the Mass in recent days.
Once John's disciples had left, Jesus said to the crowd: ‘What did you go out into the desert to see? ... A reed swayed by the wind? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, but a prophet, and more than a prophet.’ And then he added the words of today's Gospel:
‘Among those born of women, there has been no one greater than John the Baptist.’ And alluding to a prophecy of Malachi, to which He would refer again a little later, He had told them that John was the Elijah who was to return before the coming of the Messiah.
In this last statement of Jesus, there is a rather mysterious aside. ‘From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent men have been trying to seize it.’ I have just quoted this sentence from the version in our liturgical lectionary, which is not a true translation but rather an interpretation. The original text says: ‘The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.’ This mysterious text has been interpreted in various ways, both in patristic times and by modern exegetes. The translation in our lectionary is one of these interpretations. Another interpretation sees the text as an affirmation of the power of the kingdom overcoming all opposition and persecution. But there is also a third interpretation—the one I prefer—according to which the violence referred to here is the violence we must do to ourselves, through conversion, in order to reach the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever these interpretations may be, let us strive to do violence to ourselves, through healthy penance and a genuine effort at conversion, during this holy season of Advent, to prepare ourselves for the joy of Christmas.
Armand Veilleux