Genealogy (Matthew 1:1-17)

Last night, I read a brief meditation entitled ‘With Catholic Eyes’ from Janos Pilinszky’s Collected Writings. I had a look at the date of the entry: 17 March 1968. It was a moving realisation that I was only few days old, living a totally unconscious life, when someone was observing the world, including my world. The poet, a profound thinker, was thinking responsibly about human affairs.

What Pilinszky writes there about Lent, perfectly applies to Advent, too. Thus, ‘Advent, in a certain sense is nothing else than the school of divine humility, the story of God’s descent in the world. When we speak about “ascent”, we often forget that the safest way of (a moral) ascent for us is the way of humility. Humility is the counterpart of our moral sinking, as it were, with a positive sign in front of it. While the two types of descent are leading seemingly to the same direction, in fact they are complete opposites. One of them is Kain, the other Abel.

The trajectory of humility goes higher than any ascent… The history of divine salvation among us is the eternal example and witness of this “ascending descent”: our most human and divine school and possibility.’

Let us think of this long list of Jesus’ genealogy as the school of God’s humility. God, like the responsible and mature poet, is thinking about us and our world responsibly, with full commitment. Our Creator and Redeemer, was reading out loudly this saving list over our cribs; and has been reading it over our lives ­- however unprepared and immature we are.
 
17.12.2020