Weekly Reflections

Gospel Reflection for Sunday December 8th 2019
The 2nd Sunday of Advent

Prepare a Way for the Lord

In the Old Testament God says, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways.’ Our God is a God of surprises! The Kingdom that Jesus proclaims is not a kingdom based or built on human power, prestige or wealth. It is based on mercy, peace compassion, forgiveness and justice. We need to let God surpass and exceed our limitations and expectations; our ways are God not God’s ways! Through the birth of Jesus, God will turn things on their head. We get a foretaste of this in the first reading this morning; ‘The wolf will lie with the lamb, the panther and goat will be friends, calf and lion will eat together, the child will play with the snake and not be harmed.’ Even in the Old Testament God was ushering in an new reality, a new way of living, a new Kingdom.

This will reach its climax in the New Testament with the birth of Jesus. God will come to us and become one of us in humility, poverty and obscurity. He won’t be born surrounded by power, wealth or prestige. Through the birth of Jesus in a animal shed in a small unimportant village surrounded by shepherds, God will break in our world and lives in a way that no one ever thought possible.

This is what the great messenger John the Baptist comes to proclaim when says to us in today’s gospel; Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand, ‘Prepare a way for the Lord, make his path straight.’ We usually associate repentance and conversion more with the season of Lent. However, Advent also calls and challenges us to look at our lives and change whatever need to be changed. Why do we need to repent and change our ways? Because we are getting ready to welcome Jesus into our homes, hearts and daily lives.

Let’s be honest, the shops, the adverts and all the glossy magazines are selling and telling one message and set of values at this time of the year. They are trying to convince us that Christmas is a commodity, a thing. Advent, through the voice of John the Baptist is offering us something far richer, deeper and significant. Advent is asking to prepare to welcome someone, not something! We are getting to encounter and experience the love of God in the face and voice of Jesus Christ.

Yes, these weeks are about shopping, cleaning and parties, which are all very good for us. But Advent offers us so much more. These weeks before Christmas call us to repent and prepare to meet Jesus. Advent is not simply something that happens ‘out there’ somewhere. We are asked to remember that Advent takes places deep within our hearts, our homes, our families; how we live our daily lives and through the daily activities in we which we engage.

Let us pray for and with each other this week that we will do all we can to repent and prepare a way for the Lord.

What one small simple thing will I do this week to prepare a way for the Lord?

-Br Michael Moore OMI

Gospel for Sunday December 8th : Matthew 3:1-12 ©

The one who follows me will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea and this was his message: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’ This was the man the prophet Isaiah spoke of when he said:

A voice cries in the wilderness:

Prepare a way for the Lord,

make his paths straight.

This man John wore a garment made of camel-hair with a leather belt round his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, ‘Brood of vipers, who warned you to fly from the retribution that is coming? But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit, and do not presume to tell yourselves, “We have Abraham for our father,” because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is laid to the roots of the trees, so that any tree which fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire. I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who follows me is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’

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Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

Weekly Reflections

Gospel Reflection for Sunday December 8th 2019
The 2nd Sunday of Advent

Gospel for Sunday December 8th : Matthew 3:1-12 ©

The one who follows me will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire

Prayer Intentions