The Glory of the Lord will be Revealed: The Second Sunday of Advent, 2023

                                      The Glory of the Lord will be Revealed:

The Second Sunday of Advent, 2023 

December 10, 2023

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Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

 

 

When we look at the state of the world, it is hard for some people to see the hopefulness expressed in Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom. Torn apart by immense suffering, some people cannot conjure up a vision of hope. More than ever, people need to receive the comfort and relief that we hear about in the first reading. It is only when our pain is treated tenderly and with gentle care that we can begin to glimpse that hope lay on the horizon. How important it is for us to handle each other’s pain with sensitivity. 

 

To respect our human freedom, God will not mend our broken hearts without our cooperation, and God constantly challenges us with the question: What do you want? For most people, it is not an easy question to answer, but reflection upon the question invites us to go into deeper levels of love and forgiveness. This is a love that stretches us beyond ourselves to reach for the stars. It calls us to look beyond the mountains and valleys and to keep our eyes raised to the glory of the Lord.

 

John the Baptist paved the way for Jesus by inviting people to prepare their hearts and minds to hear his message of comfort and invitation. Our celebration of Advent is the Baptist’s way of getting us to reflect today on what we most need this year to allow God to mend our hearts with our cooperation. What do you most need from God right now? This year? Go as deeply as you can to articulate what you most need. How can you let God touch your heart so that your broken places of your soul are healed? God wants you to say that it is okay for God to touch those areas of woundedness, and then you must open up those painful areas in trust, confidence, and boldness. 

 

Jesus asked the people he healed whether they wanted to be healed. It is crucial that we cooperate in our healing or in being forgiven because there are consequences to change, and we must be ready to live in a new plane of consciousness. Our conversion is focused upon forgiveness, sometimes of self and sometimes of others. Forgiveness happens when we forgive ourselves first and let go of our divisive thoughts. Forgiveness begins in the heart. To heal our inner woundedness is to know God's power of love is stronger than hatred, anger, or death, and brings about a love overflowing with future life.

 

Forgiveness does not erase or undo any past hurts or injustices, but it does allow us to move forward so we can create new bonds of relationship and live on a new level of life open to new life in God. That’s the fulfillment we read about in Isaiah’s words today. Forgiveness has the potential to bring about new life because it liberates us and revitalizes our consciousness to the wonders of the present moment, of the Christmas miracle, or the longed-for healing. We can live in the present moment and move on from the past that holds us back like an anchor or weight. Forgiveness restores love so that we see the world with new eyes. Forgiveness is a radical way of loving, and we must choose it. We must choose life, we must evolve to a higher way of consciousness, we must create a world of unity, justice, and peace. 

 

This is Isaiah’s dream and the Baptist’s dream rolled into one. It is the hope that Jesus has for us, that we move forward with him. It is the reason that he is born to us, to grow in hope even when world events seem dark. As Mary said “yes,” we also need to say “yes” to be part of his transformative dream for the world, and dream that shows us God’s glory in the world, God’s hopes within each soul. Let’s give hope a chance. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (Isaiah 35) Here is your God, he comes with vindication. The eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be cleared.

 

Tuesday: (Isaiah 40) Give comfort to my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated.

 

Wednesday: (Isaiah 40) Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things. Do you not know? Have you not heard?

 

Thursday: (Genesis 3) After Adam ate of the tree, God called to him, “Where are you?” I heard you were in the garden, but I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.   

 

Friday (Isaiah 48) I, the Lord, will teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go. Hearken to my commandments.

 

Saturday (Sirach 48) A prophet named Elijah appeared whose words were as a flaming furnace. By the Lord’s word, he shut up the heavens and brought down fire three times.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Luke 5) After Jesus healed the man on a stretcher, he forgave his sins. The scribes and Pharisees protested and asked, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies?”

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 18) If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them is lost, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?

 

Wednesday (Matthew 11) Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.

 

Thursday (Luke 1) The angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin betrothed to Joseph to announce that the Holy Spirit would overpower her and she would conceive a son.  

 

Friday (Matthew 11) How shall I consider you? I played a dirge for you and you would not mourn; I played a flute for you and you would not dance.

 

Saturday (Matthew 17) As Jesus came down the mountain, the disciples asked, “Why do they say Elijah must come first?” Elijah has come and will indeed come to restore all things.

 

Saints of the Week

 

December 12: The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated to remember the four apparitions to Juan Diego in 1531 near Mexico City shortly after the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. Mary appeared as a native Mexican princess and her image is imprinted on a cloak that was presented to the bishop. 

 

December 13: Lucy, martyr (d. 304), was born into a noble Sicilian family and killed during the Diocletian persecution. In the Middle Ages, people with eye trouble invoked her aid because her name means "light." Scandinavia today still honors Lucy in a great festival of light on this day.

 

December 14: John of the Cross, priest and doctor (1542-1591), was a Carmelite who reformed his order with the help of Teresa of Avila. They created the Discalced (without shoes) Carmelite Order that offered a stricter interpretation of their rules. John was opposed by his community and placed in prison for a year. He wrote the classics, "Ascent of Mount Carmel," "Dark Night of the Soul," and "Living Flame of Love."

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• December 10, 1548. The general of the Dominicans wrote in defense of the Society of Jesus upon seeing it attacked in Spain by Melchior Cano and others. 
• December 11, 1686. At Rome, Fr. Charles de Noyelle, a Belgian, died as the 12th general of the Society. 
• December 12, 1661. In the College of Clermont, Paris, Fr. James Caret publicly defended the doctrine of papal infallibility, causing great excitement among the Gallicans and Jansenists. 
• December 13, 1545. The opening of the Council of Trent to which Frs. Laynez and Salmeron were sent as papal theologians and Fr. Claude LeJay as theologian of Cardinal Otho Truchses. 
• December 14, 1979. The death of Riccardo Lombardi, founder of the Better World Movement. 
• December 15, 1631. At Naples, during an earthquake and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the Jesuits worked to help all classes of people. 
• December 16, 1544. Francis Xavier entered Cochin.