The Second week of Advent

December 6 - December 12

Our readings this week begin with the words, “Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.” Who is this God who desires to comfort His people? What state are they in that they need to be comforted?

In our readings for this week we see a desert. Out in the desert there are howling winds that dissipate speech. One could be standing close by to another, yet both have to yell at each other to be heard. The voice of the precursor, St. John the Baptist, must have been very loud to cut through the forces that carried away his words. The world is like that, with a multitude of voices that distract and dissipate the words of God. For God doesn’t yell; He speaks in the “still, small, whispering voice” (1 Kings 19). Then we must listen carefully to His words, or rather, listen carefully for His words in the midst of a noisy world!

And yet for all that, we see the whole Judean countryside going out to see John and to repent of their old ways of doing things. There is something magnetic about his presence. His whole life speaks of an Other who is mightier, who brings about the new reality we hear of during the week: “My child, your sins are forgiven… rise, pick up your stretcher and go home.” “Do not be afraid.” “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

The advent of God, His arrival or parousia, in Greek, is an event. This is the word for what happened when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Mary in Nazareth, and when He was made manifest in Bethlehem. He reaches us today by this same method: an event. All that is necessary is to recognize and adhere to the signs of his presence. Advent sets us on a journey, in the exact same way as the disciples at the beginning. The newness in John, that greater reality he points to – the lamb of God – sets John and Andrew on a new journey as they followed that man, Jesus. It is normal to feel daunted by the journey, to feel blind and inadequate, for we are. But, as St. Peter tells us, , this is no obstacle to God’s bringing us into his divine life: “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

What is repentance? It is loving the event of God. It is to prefer His method to my own. It is a constant turning to the signs of His life among us today. It is the consequence of something new entering our horizon, broadening our horizon, widening our hearts. Let us name and attend to those magnetic presences in our life this week, the faces in front of whom our day ceases to become a burden and is revealed as a road, “the way of the Lord,” the truth of the Lord, that is, the life of the Lord.

Journal