2nd Sunday of Advent 2020
Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11; 2Peter 3: 8-14; Mark 1:1-8
Beautiful, beautiful First Reading. We could do much worse that spend time reflecting on it, and if I don’t have time to finish it, you can take it away and complete it for yourselves.
“’Console my people, console them’, says your God.” We all need consolation at times, and we need to be consolers. Sometimes we are called to console others without waiting to be consoled ourselves. God will console us in His own good time, and St. Francis de Sales urges us to “seek the God of consolations, rather than the consolations of God.”
Lord God, console us in our times of grief and darkness, but more importantly, help us to console others.
“Speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” Many people speak to our ears, some speak to our minds, but how many speak to our hearts? How many people penetrate below the surface, speak to us in the deepest part of our being, and how often do we achieve that for others? St. John Henry Newman had the motto “cor ad cor loquitur—heart speaks to heart”: Lord help us to be people of depth, who speak to the heart of others, and do you speak to our hearts, which lie open to you.
“Call to her that her time of service is ended, that her sin is atoned for.” How many people today are longing for the end of a time of suffering? Think of the people of Syria, or of Afghanistan, battered for years by long wars and brutal regimes. Think of Christians persecuted in Pakistan; North Korea; China; parts of West and East Africa and Mozambique, where terrorist gangs are active. Think of those for whom the pandemic is a long road of suffering; of people unjustly imprisoned; of the victims of abuse. Pray for them, that their time of service, of slavery, of suffering may be ended.
“A voice cries ’Prepare in the wilderness a way for the Lord.’” Where is the wilderness? Is it not everywhere that people wander and are lost, bewildered, unhappy, knowing nothing of God and of His love for them? Is it not, sometimes, our own hearts and minds, when we are in turmoil, confusion, depression?
How do we prepare a way for the Lord in these wildernesses? By opening our hearts to Him in prayer, we open a way into our own wilderness. By opening our hearts to our brothers and sisters, we prepare a way for Him to enter their lives. I saw a poster once which said “Smile at everyone you see today; it will drive them crazy”—or perhaps it will prepare a way for the Lord.
“Make a straight highway for our God across the desert.” Like the wilderness, the desert is a place of need. It is a place which needs gentle rain to fall upon it, but it is also a place where we can find God in solitude—or more accurately, we can open ourselves to His finding us. The highway which we are called to make is for God, not for ourselves. It involves clearing clutter from our lives; creating space through which God can come to us.
“Let every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low.” On this Sunday in 1986, I had to drive on a glorious autumn morning from Keswick to Windermere to celebrate Mass. As I drove, I was reflecting on this reading and thinking, “Not these hills, please Lord. They are far too beautiful.”
Yet there are other hills, the hills of our own lives, which are an obstacle to God. These are our ingrained sinful habits, our self-centredness, our impatience with others, our over-busyness, our lack of awareness of God’s presence and His call. These are the hills which we need to dynamite, the troughs and valleys which we need to fill in, so that God may reach us, and reach into us, and transform us.
That is enough for now. Read the rest, and ponder it, and let it speak to you of God, and of His love for you.
