2nd Sunday of Advent

at St Peter's Rome July 2009

Aura is more of a Mass goer than me, I admit to my shame -not really!. We live in a very conservative Catholic Diocese, Arlington, northern Virginia, USA. The gospel today was on John the Baptist, whom the homilist insisted on calling "Saint John the Baptist", in case we did not know or had missed the point. "Brood of vipers" was the leitmotif of the homily, and this was applied to all of us who do not obey the laws of the Church and God...in any way
My own interpretation of that passage was that John reserved that juicy comparison for the Scribes and Pharisees, who, according to Jesus, "thought themselves better than others"...My biblical studies tell me that the Pharisees were actually very observant of the law and commandments. Behavior was not their problem; it was the thinking themselves above others. They rejected Jesus as a friend of sinners....
I prefer to be one of the latter.
How I would like to be able to preach the word of God!
But no, with my dispensation from priestly celibacy and "reduction to the lay state" come the conditions and the loss of such "privileges and rights", I am forbidden from using my priestly "faculties"...
Still think I could do a better job than many others!
Ah, that pride of mine!