Sunday Gospel Reflection, December 10, 2017: Conduct yourselves in holiness and devotion...

Conduct yourselves in holiness and devotion…

How do we prepare when we expect the extraordinary?

   In the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, God tells the people in exile to prepare for their release:  proclaim to her that her service is at an end.  How are they to prepare?  By clearing all the obstacles they have erected between themselves and God, every metaphorical mountain and hill; all that is rugged and rough.  They are to look forward to, and proclaim, the kingdom they have only hoped for, crying out at the top of their voices, Here is your God!, though they have not seen the fullness of what is being announced to them.  But if they follow the dictates of Psalm 85, they will hear what God proclaims, and trust, trust that God will bring the salvation they need.  They are now in a position to expect the extraordinary.

   When the people of the whole Judean countryside gather to be baptized by John the Baptist in Mark's Gospel, they too are clearing the way, eliminating any obstacles between themselves and God, shedding that which is unnecessary in order to prepare for, and open their hearts to, the one who is coming, one mightier than John who will baptize them with the Holy Spirit. The audience of the Second Letter of Peter are similarly meant to understand that, since the Lord will come like a thief, they must conduct themselves in holiness and devotion, as they await new heavens and a new earth.  What was true for Christ’s first coming is true for his second coming as well:  we must expect and prepare for the extraordinary, for his arrival and revelation in our lives.

   The season of Advent is about announcing the kingdom we have not yet seen, a kingdom we cannot create on our own, but which we know to be extraordinary.  We must prepare every day for the coming of the Lord, through sacraments and prayer; we must get ready for his love to enter our lives, to change us, to allow his kingdom to come.  We prepare for the extraordinary when we come to him, ready to be transformed more profoundly.  For the more we allow God’s love to be manifest in our lives, the more prominent and transformative it will be in the world – for it is the love that has no limits, the infinite and extraordinary love of God.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  http://www.wordle.net 

Sunday Gospel Reflection, January 10, 2016: O Lord, my God, you are great indeed!

O Lord, my God, you are great indeed!

Are you prepared for God's extraordinary action in your life?

   As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, our readings speak to the power of reconciliation and restoration, the product of God's extraordinary action in our lives.  The people of Isaiah's time are to be reassured because of their imminent reconciliation with the Lord:  give comfort to my people, the Lord tells the faithful remnant, tell Jerusalem that her service is at an end.  God's power is even at work in the desert, where the highway shall be made straight, so that the glory of the Lord may be revealed, and God's might will once again be evident to God's people:  Here comes with power the Lord God, who rules by a strong arm.  Through God's extraordinary action, God is present to his people, reaching out to restore them to covenant relationship with him.  How manifold are your works, O Lord! says Psalm 104 as the psalmist celebrates the extraordinary existence we are privileged to enjoy through God's ongoing work in our lives.

  God was no less present in extraordinary ways to his Son.  In Luke's Gospel, the heavens open after Jesus' baptism, while the Son of God is praying, in intimate conversation with the Father.  And when the Holy Spirit descends like a dove, we are witness to a theophany manifesting the link between heaven and earth, the eternal and the time-bound.  Baptism by water is a commitment to reconciliation, and Jesus' baptism makes this reconciliation all the more real.  For Jesus is baptized in order to enter more fully into the humanity he has come to save; God's extraordinary action singles him out as our future savior Jesus Christ.  John the Baptist is like the faithful remnant of Isaiah, helping to restore the people to relationship; Jesus' baptism allows God to confirm that relationship as one of kinship:  You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. As the Letter to Titus suggests, the grace of God has appeared, Jesus himself, teaching us how to live and purifying us, cleansing for himself a people as his own, so that we might be ever more open and respond to the love with which we are blessed, to the salvation that is ours, to the extraordinary ways God works in each of us, every day.

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

Image source:  Wordle

Sunday Gospel Reflection, December 7, 2014: Prepare the way of the Lord!

Prepare the way of the Lord!

Have you done your winter cleaning yet? 

It’s time to prepare the way of the Lord, we are told in this Sunday’s readings – to ready our hearts for Jesus’ coming into our lives, coming at Christmas, coming in the end times, coming to meet us here and now.  So perhaps we’d better start with a bit of cleaning… 

The people in exile in the Book of Isaiah don’t have much reason for hope, yet God is now about to speak tenderly to them, to remind them that all that God has promised will come – they have only to prepare the way: Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!  For God is about to come into their lives in a big way:  Here comes with power the Lord God!  Wait with patience, therefore, but get busy, clean out any obstacles to his journey into your heart, where, as Psalm 85 promises, kindness and truth shall meet, justice and peace shall kiss.  It is a hope not yet realized, a promise whose fulfillment we await…  And while we wait, we prepare, by straightening up all that has become messy in our lives, conducting ourselves in holiness and devotion, eager to be found without spot or blemish, as the author of 2 Peter suggests…  There is so much to do to prepare a way for the Lord!

For the faithful of Mark’s Gospel, John the Baptist is a means by which some of that cleaning and preparation can take place.  John reminds the people of the promise that is their hope; his call is a call to repentance.  His job, too, is to prepare the way, opening hearts to conversion, allowing the Lord to come triumphantly along the way, the path that has been made straight for him.  He encourages the people – as we are encouraged in Advent – to prepare the way by tearing down the walls that sin has created in our lives, so that the Lord might come to be born in us, and through us.  Prepare, not just by waiting, but by doing, by living and loving as fully as you can… so that your hearts are clean, and open, when the Lord arrives.

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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