prepare the way
Prepare Your Heart
2nd Sunday of Advent
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: Dec. 5, 2021
What will the world look like 20 years from now? What will the church look like 20 years from now?
I really have no idea! And I would be very suspicious if someone tried to tell you that they knew what it would be like. In fact, this Covid experience has made us all uncertain about what next month will look like!
Many grandparents and parents have a similar question about their grandchildren or children. What will come of my child who is struggling with depression or who has been recently divorced, or is struggling with an addiction? Here we often have to admit that we really have no idea.
One of my favourite prayers is a prayer by Thomas Merton. It goes like this:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
This uncertainty about the future, about what God is doing, this doubt that we struggle with at times, is found in any honest life of faith.
During Advent we see John the Baptist and the great prophets of the Old Testament. They also did not know what God was going to do. They did not know how or when or what God was doing to do. They believed that God was going to do something, they were waiting and expecting the Messiah, the Anointed One. But, they did not know what or how this would take place.
So, the action of God coming in Jesus was not recognized by almost anyone, it was not expected, it was utterly surprising.
Today we also do not know how or when God will work in our world, in our church, in our own lives. The result can be fear, uncertainty, doubts. But, uncertainty and doubts are not a problem, they are not a sign of lack of faith. Uncertainty and doubt is simply the result of me not being God. You are not God, so you will definitely face uncertainty and doubts.
What to do when faced with uncertainty, with doubts? We need to do what we hear John the Baptist was doing in the Gospel today. Prepare the way of the Lord. Calling the people to repentance for the forgiveness of sins. They were to make crooked ways straight. Like the people at the time of the coming of Jesus, most of us are unaware of what God is doing in our world, in our lives right now. What we need to do is prepare our hearts, repent and have forgiveness of our sins, work to make straight any crooked, broken relationships.
We cannot control what God is doing, and most times we really have no idea what God is doing. But, during this Advent, we can prepare our hearts. For some of us it might be the call to change and receive forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Confession. For some it will be the challenge to heal a broken relationship. By preparing well we will be better able to celebrate what God has done for our salvation and better able to recognize what God is doing right now in our world, in our church, in our lives.
Do not worry about being uncertain, about having doubts. Do not worry about not knowing what God is doing now in our world or our church or your life. This Advent prepare your heart, ask for forgiveness of sins, make crooked ways straight. Then just maybe we will see and recognize what God is doing today and how Jesus is coming among us today.
Prepare The Way For Faith
Second Sunday of Advent 2020
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: December 6, 2020
Who passed on the faith to you? Which people led you to embrace the faith? Perhaps a parent, or a grandparent. Perhaps a teacher or a priest. Perhaps a friend. Who was an instrument in preparing your heart for faith?
John the Baptist is described as a messenger “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” Calling out to people, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” People from the Judean countryside and from Jerusalem were going out to him to be baptized in the river Jordan and to confess their sins.
John the Baptist was preparing their hearts for faith. The season of Advent is a time waiting, of preparation, to open our hearts to faith. What were those people waiting for? For the Messiah, for God’s salvation? What are our hearts waiting for at this time?
Some of you are perhaps waiting to be loved, or to be accepted by someone, or to be healed in some way, or to be forgiven, or to be at peace with someone. During Advent, whatever else, we are all waiting and preparing our hearts for faith.
A child within it’s mother’s womb is waiting, but that child does not know what to expect, cannot imagine life outside the womb. We are like that child in the womb as we live in this life. We are waiting for heaven. In this life we cannot imagine what that heavenly life outside life in this world will be like. We see only in faith.
In our second reading from Peter today, he speaks of the patience of God with us and of our need to wait patiently and in peace. When we do not see the final goal, when we do not feel the presence of God in our lives. Then we need that faith that allows us to wait in peace.
During the season of Advent, the Prophet Isaiah is a focus. You could say that Isaiah is the prophet of Advent. In today’s first reading, Isaiah speaks of how “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low.” What are the mountains and hills that are obstacles to our faith?
Like John the Baptist we need to help one another to prepare our hearts for faith. We need to help others to persevere in faith.
One important way we do this for others is by the words we use, the words we speak to others. Our words matter. Do the words I speak to others prepare the heart of others for faith, or are they obstacles to faith? Isaiah has God speaking these words, “Comfort, O comfort my people,… speak tenderly to Jerusalem.” We need to speak words that comfort others.
In the coming of Jesus the word of God has spoken to humanity, it is Good News. A word of forgiveness. Someone once said that the whole story of Israel is the story of unfaithfulness forgiven.
Like John the Baptist we need to prepare the hearts of others for faith. The words we speak to others need to be words that bring comfort, words that are good news, words that are able to prepare the heart of another for the grace of God. The words I speak to others can either be like a mountain blocking faith or they can prepare the heart for faith.
Be a John the Baptist today, be a messenger that helps people around you to have a heart prepared for faith. Reflect on the words you speak to others. Are they good news, are they able to open the heart for faith?
Prepare The Way Of The Lord – Fr. David
2nd Sunday of Advent – Year B
Fr. David Reitzel
Preached: Dec 10, 2017
Imagine yourself in the shoes of an Israelite in the time of the prophet Isaiah. The year is 587 BC. You and your family used to live in the glorious city of Jerusalem. You have fond memories of walking the streets of that city with your friends and family. You recall your frequent visits to the temple where you would pray for God’s blessings. You remember the feeling of safety provided by the large city walls and the feeling of comfort knowing that God was present among you in his temple.
But all of that is gone now. You no longer live in Jerusalem because that city no longer exists. It has been destroyed. The walls have been toppled, and the temple is no more than a pile of rubble. The place you live in now is Babylon, 1500 kilometers away. The people here, the Babylonians, are the ones who attacked Jerusalem, destroyed it, and brought you away as their slaves. You and your family work for them now, with no hope of salvation. You are now a slave. You will live a slave and you will die a slave. Your children will do the same, and your children’s children. And the irony is, you are God’s chosen people. So where is He?
Imagine how hopeless these Israelites must have felt as they looked at their situation, and saw no way out. Then imagine how their hearts must have lifted when they saw the prophet Isaiah walking through the streets of Babylon, telling everyone that he has received a message from God. For years God has been silent, but now he speaks, and what will he say? After gathering a large crowd around him, Isaiah opens his mouth and the words come out, “comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” After so much suffering and hardship, the first words that God wanted to speak to his children are words of comfort. And why should they feel comfort? Isaiah speaks again telling them, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” This can mean only one thing: God is coming. He has seen our suffering and heard our cries and now he is coming to save us. He will end our captivity in Babylon and bring us back to Jerusalem just as he had done centuries earlier with Moses in Egypt.
Imagine how the hearts of those Israelites must have been lifted as they heard these words of the prophet Isaiah. They now had hope, they now had something to look forward to. And indeed God did free them from exile.
In 539BC, 48 years after they entered Babylon, Israel was allowed to return home to the Promised Land. Once their, they started preparing the way of the Lord. They rebuilt the city, their homes, their walls, and most importantly their temple. They had prepared a place suitable for the lord to come, and once they had finished they waited, and waited and waited. Isaiah said that God was coming, but as the apostle Peter reminds us in our second reading, for God one day is a thousand years.
The people of Israel would have to wait another 500 years before their God fulfilled his promise. And when that time came a voice cried out in the wilderness saying prepare the way of the Lord. This voice did not come from the prophet Isaiah, but now from John the Baptist, who spoke about the immanent coming of Israel’s God. He encouraged them to prepare for their God by turning away from their sins.
You would think that everyone in Israel would have flocked to John. Here was a prophet telling them that their long awaited saviour, their God, was coming. But in reality, not everyone listened to John. After 500 years of waiting, some people’s hearts had grown dull, they had forgotten that their God was coming, or perhaps ceased to believe it. So when the saviour came, when Jesus made himself known, there were only some who followed him, the rest were uninterested and unprepared. They had missed the day of their Lord’s coming.
Advent is a time where we remind ourselves that we are like Israel who had to wait for the coming of their Lord. As Catholics we believe that God came 2000 years ago in Jesus Christ, but we also believe that He will come again, at a time we do not know and an hour we do not expect, and that will mark the end of time. It is precisely our ignorance of the day that makes us like Israel. We must wait, patiently, always being prepared. Will he come today, tomorrow, in 500 years, at the end of this Mass? We do not know. What we do know is that he is coming, and we want to be prepared. The words of Isaiah are for us as well. Prepare the way of the Lord.
While we hold ourselves in readiness all year round, advent is a special time of focus on preparing for our Lords coming. We go to confession, we say extra prayers, we go to Mass more often. All of these things are to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ.
However, there is one temptation that I would like to speak of. I know you don’t need to be reminded that the lead up to Christmas is the busiest time of the year. And to hear a priest say that you need to do even more things is probably not the most welcome message but, may I try to help put things in perspective. As you run around this advent, as you prepare for parties, shop for gifts, and decorate just about everything, can you take a moment, stop, and ask yourself, “How does this prepare a way for the Lord? If Christ were to come at the end of today, would I still do what I am doing right now?” And if you’re not satisfied with the answer, then drop what you’re doing, and prepare for the way of the Lord.