By Fr. Robert P. Imbelli
If memory serves (an increasingly dubious assumption), my theatrical debut took place in first grade, when I portrayed an elderly Civil War veteran. My opening lines were: “Here we are on Decoration Day, and I am confined to my bed, too old to be in the parade.” Having now reached eighty-seven years, it may be prudent to inform a younger generation that Decoration Day was the name of the holiday we now celebrate as Memorial Day. Decoration Day received its name from the custom of decorating the graves of those who had served their country and paid the ultimate price.
But what evoked that memory from eighty years ago was the word that lingered on the tongue of a seven-year-old: “confined.” Back then, it probably evoked associations with measles or whooping cough and being sadly “confined” to bed, though happily excused from school. Today, living in a retirement home, the associations are more with walkers, wheelchairs, and hospital stays: less pleasant prospects and confinements.
But even these pale before the “confinement” recalled in today’s Gospel, for the Third Sunday of Advent. John the Baptist, confined in prison, physically and spiritually constrained, poses the anguished question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?” (Matthew 11:3).
“Confinement” carries the sense of being “delimited,” “limited,” situated within “boundaries.” In this sense, we are all “confined”: by our physical capacities, our natural gifts, and ultimately by our common mortality. As the psalmist acknowledges with melancholy: “The years of our life are seventy, or eighty if there is strength… but they soon pass, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).
Of course, we, children of Adam and Eve, too often rebel against limits and restrictions, against mortality. Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death remains, even fifty years later, a crystalline diagnosis of our personal and cultural situation. We are captivated by the insinuation: “You will not die… you will be like gods” (Genesis 3:4-5).
Thus, we strive to pluck the fruit that promises endless life, unlimited possibilities, mastery of our destiny. Dante memorably describes the three beasts—the lustful desire, the unrestrained power, and the frantic pursuit of fame—that tempt and seduce us with their spurious promise, while derailing our path to true life.
It takes little imagination to identify their most visible contemporary embodiments. They appear daily, though in varied ways, on Fox and on CNN. It requires deeper discernment to confess one’s own complicity. That is why we too implore with the psalmist: “Teach us to count our days, that we may gain a wise heart” (Psalm 90:12).
However, considering “confinement” more closely may offer additional insight. The word may astutely contain its own inversion. There is, for example, that suggestive “con.” We share the limits together; we touch one another; we are closely bound to each other. Confined, we rub shoulder to shoulder—for better and for worse. “There’s the rub!” Or perhaps the solution. Maybe even an opening to salvation.
Confined, we seem diminished, reduced, solitary. Solitary confinement is a terrifying substitute for hell. But by breaking down the word, a transformative reality may emerge. “Con-finis”: a common end. We share together a goal, a purpose, not by nature, but by sheer grace. The grace of the One who is to come; more than that, who always comes: the Christ of God.
“Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?” (Malachi 3:2). And not even the sweet tones of Handel can soften the harshness of the question.
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed. Even the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”
The true scope of the scandal barely begins to be revealed on this Advent Sunday. First we must pass through this time of waiting and the astonishing mystery of Christmas. We must venture into the Lenten desert and arrive trembling before the vision of the Cross, before plumbing the true depth of the scandal. There, fixed in contemplation of the Crucified, we will be able to understand that the extreme confinement has become the most encompassing communion: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).
The Morning Star that rises and illumines our path and reveals our hope always shines in the form of a cross. It manifests the only liberation from confinement and despair. In the same epistle in which St. Paul exhorts us to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4), he recounts something of his own transformative journey. He confesses the idolatries of lineage and prestige, the misdirected zeal that narrowed his vision and prevented his encounter with the living God. For he has come to understand that true living is living entirely in Christ, “the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Christ is the end, the goal, the purpose of God.
Now the desire that consumes Paul is “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and to share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, so that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).
But this new life is not only for Paul. The Apostle shares in Christ the common call to all. The common end—con-finis—to which all humanity is summoned. Not merely to be juxtaposed, living in enmity and hostility, but to live as neighbors, and more than neighbors. To be together members of the Body of Christ, sisters and brothers in the Lord—dare we say it boldly?—fratelli tutti in Christ.
And the little ones who inhabit and live this new Creation are greater even than the Baptist who, from his confinement, could only announce it from afar.
And so, in our Advent commemoration of the Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension, we proclaim with joy the ongoing coming of the glorified Lord: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. The Lord is at hand.” Gaudete!
About the author
Robert P. Imbelli is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. His collected essays and reflections, some of which first appeared in The Catholic Thing, have recently been published under the title Christ Brings All Newness (Word on Fire Academic).