Prepare the Way for the Lord through Repentance this Advent

Some of us stay away from our families—from our own parents, spouses and children, even God. Because of our own pride, anger, ego, misunderstanding and selfishness. We experience loneliness and feel our lives are miserable. Likewise, the people of Israel also felt the same - in sorrow, in distress and hoping to return back to Jerusalem. It is at this juncture the Prophet Baruch has shown the people of Israel that God would bring them back to Jerusalem. Like what we heard in the first reading, their God, Yahweh, as promised, has brought them back to Jerusalem. For a long time, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile, no voice of a prophet was heard in the land. After a great gap, then came a voice in the wilderness, crying out to ‘prepare the way for the Lord, to make the paths straight’. The same words were told by the Prophet Isaiah to the Jewish in exile. But one important difference is this - throughout the Old Testament, God sends prophets to bring the people who are in captivity back to him, but in the New Testament it is God himself who comes down as a human being, in search for us. He brings salvation to offer us. God comes to visit the sinners, the poor and the lost. E.g. Zacchaeus and the lost sheep in the Gospel of Luke. In the Gospel passage, we find the voice of John the Baptist, who cries out ‘Repent, prepare the way for the Lord. Make the paths straight’. Advent is the season not only to wait for Christ’s birth but also to prepare ourselves for the return of Jesus in glory. We are called to repentance-in and through acts of righteousness, concrete acts of sharing, by turning from our sins, so that we may experience the salvation that the Lord brings. - Sunday Homily by Fr. Antony Charles, C.Ss.R. (8 December 2024)