THE TRAVELERS OF THE ADVENT, A JOURNEY OF CONVERSION.
December 6, 2020
Second Sunday of Advent - B.
A Bantu proverb says, “The road doesn't tell the traveler
what lies ahead.” And a Nigerian proverb adds, “A traveler to distant places
should make no enemies.”
To travel is to move forward. No one travels backward. The
Advent journey is a walk towards newness and the perfection of life. The
Christian life, but also human life in general, is a journey. We are pilgrims
on this earth. Our life lasts just the time of a journey. When one says journey
or travelers, we think of realities such as the road, the means of
transportation, the conditions of the journey. He who dreams of a pleasant trip
must first put conditions to make it pleasant. Thus, the French dictum, “He who
wishes to travel far take care of his mount.”
Last Sunday, opening the Advent pilgrimage, we said we are
an Advent people, which means people on the wait, called to keep watch,
adventurers toward the unknown. Today, the second Sunday of Advent, we are
reminded that we are travelers with the obligation to prepare the road they
will travel in, the road of our life. The words and the personality of John the
Baptist are the most evocative of our Advent obligations: “Prepare the way of
the Lord, make straight his paths.” An exhortation that summarizes a firm call:
conversion.
Conversion is one of the greatest requirements in the Advent
journey. As we prepare to celebrate the coming of the Lord, it is imperative
that we change our human ways made of sin and embrace God’s way that is
righteousness. The call of John in the Gospel and the exhortation of the
Prophet Isaiah, in the first reading, meet on this point. John the Baptist, as
the voice in the desert, we hear, was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for
the forgiveness of sins.” His mission, as he himself will reveal to the people,
was to prepare the way to the mightier than him who is coming. John, in that
sense, not only stands as the greatest prophet of the Advent, the one making
the journey with us but also the best example of humility. This can be read in
his words: “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.” The Advent season is a time for us to learn
the perfect humility that consists of giving primacy to God in our lives.
The words and mission of John were prophetically announced
seven centuries before by Isaiah. The prophet, at that time, exhorted the
people of God to make a way in their lives and hearts for God. He said: “A
voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in
the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every
mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the
rough country, a broad valley.” Isaiah started his call by announcing a divine
consolation for suffering Israel: “Comfort, give comfort to my people.” The
coming of the Lord is to bring consolation to the heart of his pilgrim children
that we are. This season of Advent is the time in which the Lord comes to give
comfort to a people journeying in the dark valley of this world made of sins
and rejection of God. The conversion we are called for is our need to cut with
all that keeps us away from the Lord. As we await a new beginning, we are urged
to disconnect from the old.
St. Peter, in the second reading, emphasizes that element of
newness. The Apostle tells the Christian community that, “according to his
promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” To
enter that novelty, we need a deep inner purification. Thus, Peter exhorts, “Therefore,
beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or
blemish before him, at peace.”
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