Here we are on the second week of Advent. The season of
Advent is, of course, the beginning of the Liturgical Year, the time when we
look forward and prepare for the coming of the Lord. We joyfully anticipate his
birth. For children, especially,
Christmas can’t come quickly enough.
They muster all of their patience, waiting to open all those gifts under
the Christmas tree. In some ways, it’s a
good lesson because we all have to learn how to wait, throughout our lives. When we are young, birthdays can’t come quick
enough. When we enter our teen years, we
can’t wait to enter high school. When we
enter high school, we know that getting our driver’s license is just around the
corner. Then comes the day we turn
eighteen, and twenty-one, the day we get married, or have our first child. Throughout our lives, we seem to be
constantly looking over that fence, anticipating what is just around the
corner, but not yet here.
Time and time again, Israel found itself waiting. Abraham waited to find the unknown land that
God would lead him to. He waited for the
fulfillment of God’s promise of a sea of descendants. The Hebrews, previously enslaved in Egypt,
were set free, only to have to wait once again, wondering in the wilderness for
forty years.
In today’s first reading, Isaiah has been instructed by the
Lord to bring a promise of comfort to His people. Warfare will be at an end, and pardon for all
of their sins will be granted. The roads
in the wilderness will be straightened, valleys will be lifted up, uneven
ground made level, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed. But not yet!
These promises of succor will be granted by the Lord, but at a time that has
not yet occurred.
In the Second Reading, Peter tells his flock that the
waiting is not yet at an end. He says
that the Lord’s promises will be fulfilled, but at a time of the Lord’s
choosing, not ours.
“But do not ignore this one fact,
beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day. The Lord is not slow
about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not
wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a
thief… But according to his promise we
wait for new heavens and a new earth…“
More waiting! It
never gets easier, does it. At least,
now, we are told how to behave while we wait. We are told to be zealous to be
found by him without spot or blemish. In
other words, we are to straighten the roads of our lives, to fill in the pits,
and smooth the hills.
Finally, in Mark’s Gospel, we see John, preaching a baptism
of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, saying
“After me comes he who is mightier
than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and
untie. I have baptized you with water,
but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
So here we are, entering the second week of Advent, and
again we wait. We know that the Lord is
coming, but first we need to amend our lives, need to make our pathways
straight and level. How then do we
accomplish this? I’m the first one to
admit that I am terrible at waiting. I
am very impatient. If you have any
doubts, just ask my wife. When something
is promised, is just around the corner, I want it right now. Waiting is fine for everyone else, but not
for me. My guess is that I am not alone
in this respect. We see our impatience
rearing its ugly head all around us. We
see more and more couples forgoing marriage, and moving in with each other, unable
to wait for the intimacy that is proper to marriage. When we do get married, we know that we are
called to be open to the gift of children, but we realize that having those
children will diminish our own pleasures and interests. Children require a lot of things, all of
which cost a lot of money, but society says that life is all about us and that
having to put the needs of children before our own is unnecessary, and wrongly
curtails our freedom. Common wisdom
leads many to the belief that contraception and abortion are valid “choices”
and even a constitutional right.
How are we to discern the will of God in our lives? What are we to do in order to be found
without spot or blemish when the day of the Lord appears? I would suggest that the best thing we can do
is to spend time with the Lord, in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, praying
before the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus. Once again, Jesus, the second Person of the
Trinity, and the Eternal Word of God, is showing us how to be fully human, by
waiting for us! All He asks of us is to
spend time in prayer with Him. Just as
Jesus asked Peter, James, and John to spend time with him in the Garden of
Gethsemane on the night before his passion, He desires us to spend time with
Him, to place our sins once again upon his shoulder, to seek what he seeks,
that the will of the Father will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.
As always, God has made the first move, and now he is
waiting for us. How will we respond?
