A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. Remember, this scene follows yesterday. It's the it's the feast of the circuit the occasion is the circumcision of John in which Zachariah, first of all, said his name is going to be John. He recovered his sight, and now we continue that story.
So Zechariah, the father of John, filled with the holy spirit, uttered this prophecy. Blessed be the lord, the god of Israel, because he has visited and ransomed his people. He has raised a horn of saving strength for us in the house of David, his servant. That's where we had that long genealogy the other day. As he promised through the mouths of his holy ones, the prophets of ancient times, salvation from our enemies and from the hands of all our foes.
He has dealt mercifully with our fathers and remembered the holy covenant he made, the oath that he swore to Abraham, our father, he would grant us. That rid of fear and delivered from the enemy, we should serve him devoutly and through all our days, be holy in his sight. And you now he's addressing his son, John, and you, oh child, shall be called prophet of the most high. For you shall go before the lord to prepare the straight paths for him, giving his people a knowledge of salvation and freedom from their sins. All of this is the work of the kindness of our god.
He, the dayspring, shall visit us in his mercy to shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Well, we're almost in the Christmas season.
We practically have begun the celebration. Did you notice that last sentence that Zachariah is addressing to his son John, who is or will be the precursor of Jesus. And Zachariah says that to shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet in the way of peace. Did you catch that? I want to lay two things before you.
Here we are on the, you know, the beginning of the great whatever it is. We call it Christmas. First of all, Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley died in 1822, if I remember correctly. My memory is like Mercury.
But Percy Bischelli, in that I in a famous poem of his called The Ode to the Skylark, has this to say among other things, that we look before and after and pine pine, you know, we wither away, and pine for what is not. Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught. Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Now a great deal is in the is in those lines. That was his view of life, and you know he died a very young man in a in a tragedy when on his sailboat down in the Mediterranean.
But that's the way he looks at it. And you see how dark and dull and unpromising that is. Now let's put in contrast another sentence. This goes all the way back to Saint Augustine of Hippo, March to 04/30, on those dates I'm pretty sure of, in a famous book of his called The Confessions. And the very first sentence of those conf of that book called Confessions is this is this statement.
Oh God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts will not be at rest until they rest in you. Now you see the contrast here. We look before and after and pine. We wither away. We we decay.
We dry up and pine for what is not. Now you see, it's it's really only a fool who pines away for what is not. In other words, he's living he's living a life in in what is not real. But you see what what Shelley is bringing out there is that profound emptiness that we all feel. And let me tell you, some people never feel it more stringently and grievously than they do at Christmas time, when they look around their homes and see the vacant chairs, the vacant rooms, or maybe the whole home is gone.
When they are the lone survivors in some instances, or when life has pressed in upon them and things have just gone terribly poorly, and they look before and they look after, and notice, they're looking in the in the past, and they're looking into the future, and all they could do is wither on the vine because of what is not. Now, Augustine, you see, has something of the same idea. We're empty. We're empty. Thou hast made us for thyself, o god, and our hearts will not be at rest until they rest in you.
In other words, we have an inborn restlessness. We have an inborn an inborn emptiness. We are not going to get everything we want in this life because let me tell you, the things that we want we either get or we don't get. And if we don't get them, of course, we're frustrated. Then we know what's wrong.
If only that had happened, if only I had that, if only had if this had worked out, if only that had not happened the way it did, then everything would be just perfect. That is balderdash. Because let me tell you, the things that we most want when we get them, it isn't that they turn to dust and ashes in our mouth, but they do leave us unsatisfied. And in many instances they bring disillusionment, or they bring cares and worries and anxieties which we never anticipated. Anticipated.
In other words, they don't fill the bill, they just don't do it. And you so you see, Shelley, who dies in 1822, and Augustine of Hippo, Northern Africa, who dies in 04/30, they're both recognizing a very profound psychological fact. Fact, it's of experience that we are created, we are our very nature is to be dissatisfied, to be empty, to be wanting, to need something, to be unfulfilled. And they're both telling us that we're not going to get it in this life. They're both telling us this.
But you see, Shelley has nothing else to offer. Notice, he does not offer us any hope. Whereas Augustine, he's got an answer to this. He says, of course you're unsatisfied. Of course you're restless.
Of course you're unfulfilled. Of course things haven't gone the way they you like them to go. Of course you haven't gotten everything you want. As a matter of fact, you're never going to get it in this world. Why?
Says Saint Augustine. See, he has an answer. We're not just withering on the vine with Augustine. Augustine says, sure, you're in that state of incompleteness here. And you're going to stay in that state of incompleteness in this life.
Why? Because you were never intended to be satisfied in this life. This life was never intended to be a bed of roses. It would this world was never intended to be your goal or your ultimate destiny. It is was never intended to be a paradise on earth.
Because, says Saint Augustine, you were made for God. Thou, oh God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts will not be at rest until they rest in you. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.