SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (2023)

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (2023)

Readings:

Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11

Psalms 85:9-14

2 Peter 3:8-14

Mark 1:1-8

I had been in the monastery’s rather cloistered novitiate less than six months when the full Benedictine Advent began.  I knew this would be unlike any Advent that I had previously experienced, even though the Sisters of Saint Joseph tried their best to keep our minds focused on what was appropriate Advent awareness in a world which was already celebrating Christmas.  Of course, there would be no Christmas parties to break up the monotony of snowy, gray December days, but the work time from one to three every week day had me looking forward to the great celebration of Christmas, for in the dank and unseated surroundings of the monastery cellar we spent our time making the wreaths and garlands that would be hung some time after mid-day Christmas Eve.  There was a wonderful sense of community when, with the older brothers who voluntarily helped, you would trudge through snow out to the Christmas Tree farm to collect the boughs needed for our work.  As Christmas got closer, chosen people would once again trudge through the snow to identify and tag the 15-20 foot trees that would be the centerpieces of the Church, Dining room (large refectory), and the common recreation room, where novices would be allowed only during the Christmas season.  While Advent in the monastery was austere, and totally different than anything I had experienced, it was a wonderful time which allowed you to fully focus, and look forward to without distraction, the great celebration of Jesus’ birth.

Today’s second Sunday of Advent heightens our awareness of the coming feast of Christmas by introducing to one of the key figures of the Christmas narrative, John the Baptizer.  It is not as though John will play any particular role in the birth of the Savior; his connection is born of salvation history.  Our first reading from Isaiah, from eight-hundred years before Christ, alludes to the voice that “cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord!  Make straight in the wasteland a highway for one God!”  Valleys will be filled in, and mountains made low – nothing will stand in the way of the God who desires, like a shepherd, to feed and lead His flock.  When God comes, God will usher in a time when “kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss.  Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven.”  Would that such justice exist in our Church!

The beginning of our oldest gospel, Mark, catapults across eight centuries, using the very words of Isaiah.  John the Baptizer fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy.  John is the one preparing for the long awaited God by “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  John’s baptisms bring the kind of comfort spoken of by Isaiah, comforting the “whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

John bore no illusions that he was the Messiah.  While he knew he had a role to play in this unfolding of salvation history, he knew that “one mightier than I is coming after me.  I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.  I have baptized you with water; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  With John,  the redemption looked forward to by so many has finally begun.

As St. Peter says in our second reading, our God is so “patient,” that God “wishes that no one should perish but that all should come to repentance.” Indeed, Peter even gives the impression that our attempts at goodness could hasten “the coming day of the Lord.”  We, like Peter’s audience, should “conduct ourselves in holiness and devotion,” eager to be found by God at the end of time “without spot or blemish,” and living at peace with one another.

Perhaps this Advent is a good time to pray for the peace that only God can give.  We think of Peace as the gift of Easter, for in all of His appearances to His disciples Jesus greets them with blessings of peace.  But in some of our beloved Christmas hymns and carols, it is peace that comes down from heaven on Christmas Day.  As today’s responsorial psalm states “God proclaims peace to His people,” and with the birth of His Son in our world, peace is possible.  With wars on so many fronts we might lose sight of the possibility that peace is possible.  But with God, all things are possible.  This Advent season, especially pray for the peace that only a loving God can give.