Second Week of Advent Homily

Most virtues that we know have their origins in God. God is very affectionate of preparing right from the beginning. God prepares the land and the seas before creating animals and plants. God prepares the Garden of Eden before the creation of man. The divine action always involves preparation. Before the people of Israel left Egypt, God used the Passover to prepare them. God prepares our redemption through the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today’s readings tell us about preparation: to prepare for the Lord. As we heard in the first reading today, the prophet Isaiah was told to comfort God’s people and to assure them that the period of warfare has ended. God returns to the people after a period of their separation from Him. To this end, the prophet went further to tell the people to prepare for the coming of the Lord. 

According to the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah, preparation is seen as a form of a road construction. It is a physical road construction which involves three activities: levelling, filling and making plain. In our spiritual life, the road represents our heart, which needs to be levelled, filled and /made plain for the Lord.  The road presents our hearts made rough by the paths we have chosen that lead us away from God.

We need to level our heart again by being cleansed of our sins and disobedience in our lives. We need to turn to God and fill our hearts with virtues and values which demonstrate that we belong to God. We need to change our lives and go back over our paths to God to make it plain for the Lord. It is good to prepare our spiritual life before the glory of God will be shown to forth to all of us.

Yet, many of us put advent on hold spiritually.  We prepare the home, the decorations, the food and buying the presents in readiness for our family celebrations.   Do we remember that we are celebrating the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ at Christmas?  These activities are necessary practical preparation.  However, the Church provides Advent as a season of hope so that we can prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts spiritually.   We tend to anticipate the glory but only a few are ready to undertake the spiritual road. Many of us are seriously waiting to celebrate Christmas but only a few are ready to get there through the process of Advent.  We may be ready to celebrate Christmas with the food, presents and decorations, but we have often neglected our spiritual Advent preparation.  We have wasted our spiritual opportunity to level, fill and make our hearts plain for the Lord.  It is time for us to prepare our hearts for the Lord in our lives.

The Gospel reading is very much similar to the first reading where it emphasises the word preparation.  But it establishes with the idea of the baptism of repentance. In other words, John the Baptist challenges us to accept repentance as a very dependable way of preparing our hearts for the coming of the Lord. There will be a strong need for us to approach the sacrament of reconciliation this season in order to prepare ourselves for the birth of our Lord. We need to reconsider and improve our lifestyles; we need to make a positive change in our hearts habitable for our Lord when he comes.

The barrier to preparing for the lord in our world today is so much about material possession. However, John the Baptist recommends detachment from material wealth as one way of preparing for the Saviour.  John the Baptism himself was “clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist.” This means that we should be modest with material things this season so that we have time and space to prepare the way for the lord. It is time now that we act because the day of the Lord will come like a thief that we don’t expect.

Often many people fix dates for the time of the coming of the Lord but they have also failed several times. Our waiting should not based on our human way of reckoning time. Our waiting should be that of preparation or being ready for the coming of our Lord. God expects us at this time to be concerned about preparing a way for Him. He is not coming to Bethlehem but into our hearts. Will YOU be prepared and ready to receive Him into YOUR heart?

 Let tomorrow we are expecting belongs to today and let us also remember that when we fail to prepare we prepare to fail. We may be tempted to say that we are half way through Advent so it is too late to start to prepare spiritually.  Let us make the decision today  to level out, fill and make plain for the Lord our hearts.

We pray that this season will be the time for us to devote and prepare the way for the Lord. 

This homily was given on 9th December at St Dominic's East Camberwell by

Deacon Lawrence Bosekana OP. 

New Horizons contributed in the process of editing.