Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The gospel this Second Sunday of Advent comes to console us. It comforts me personally and is like a balm in the midst of this Advent season. This word always comes to help us, and the Lord always comforts us in this way that only he can by loving us. We can also comfort others by loving them, not by nagging them or demanding something from them or by punishing them. One consoles by loving, by understanding, by having mercy with others. Therefore, the first reading is impressive. It says, give comfort to my people; speak tenderly to them (to Jerusalem). The Lord wants to speak to us through the heart, which is the seat of love, of affection. The Lord wants to speak to the heart of each one of us.
He is talking to us through John the Baptist who is a voice crying out in the desert. He wants to speak to our heart and make us fall in love with the Lord. The Lord wants to do this for us little by little. He does not want to force you to love him. He is a gentleman who does not oblige us to love. For love to be true it must be free. You and I must be freely able to love the Lord and that is why our conversion is slow because as the second reading says he is patient with you and wants all to come to Him. He wants to break in us this profound selfishness. The Holy Spirit will break this pride that all of us have so that we no longer live for ourselves and can one day freely love.
We are in a desert and a voice cries out to us; it screams to us. In a desert you can cry out, because no one is there and therefore no one will listen to you. We are living in a desert, but God does something miraculous. In the midst of this desert that we are in, we can listen to him. In your aridity, in your selfish nature that I have also, I am like John the Baptist calling out to you that you cannot love, that you don’t love and what you think is love is only an idolatry. This desire for affection. This is what you and I often look for. This is not true love. True love always involves the cross. If we don’t have this then we are in a desert.
But the good news is that the Lord will change this desert and make straight his paths. Every valley will be filled in and every mountain and hill will be levelled. Water will rise in the desert and grass will grow. In this desert we will see who we are. We will see that we cannot love that we live for ourselves, that we are rotten, dead or dry in our faith. We see ourselves truly in the desert that we are like lepers, dead like Lazarus, lame. But the good news is that in the midst of our sins and weaknesses, in the middle of our pride, in this desert, the Lord gives us a voice that tells us your crime is paid for, your debts have been paid. Everything is paid for. You owe nothing.
John the Baptist is impressive. The Lord doesn’t go ahead of him. He says the Lord is coming after me. Generally, the Lord says get behind me, follow me but now John leads the way because John is the voice. It is necessary to listen to the voice to the preaching in order to see Jesus Christ. First, we need to listen and then we can encounter this love. This is why St. Paul says faith comes from listening. Paul could have said that faith comes from many things: it comes from studying theology, it comes because we are in the dark, it comes because we pray a lot, but it is nothing of the sort. Faith comes from something so dumb and so simple, and it comes without any effort, which is to listen to the preaching. When we listen, we hear love! It doesn’t require any effort. Love enters us through our eyes, our pores.
Love is very attractive. Nothing attracts us so much as love; beauty is also easy to love. We are attracted to beauty, aren’t we? Beauty is also a sign of love. It attracts us. We are attracted to the beauty of flowers, to something that is agreeable. The Lord loves and this attracts us. He draws us to him. Love is like a magnet that attracts the love of the Lord. You are the metal, and the Lord is the magnet that attracts you.
This is the good news, brothers and sisters. That is why the preaching that is effortless leads us to see the Lord. The blind man of Jericho hears a huge tumult because it is Jesus of Nazareth who is passing by, and he has the power to cure him. So, the blind man cries out: Jesus, Son of David, have pity on my, for I am a sinner. This is the mission of John the Baptist to tell you that there is one who has the power to take you out of your slavery, out of your darkness, to take you out of the meaninglessness of your life, of the depression that you are in. He has the power to give you eternal life and joy and help you to see him face to face. Jesus Christ is seen in the face of the others.
Christians are not crazy people who follow someone they cannot see. They have seen the love of Christ in their lives and felt it. They can see his love in their history. The Lord is coming to love us, to marry us; he comes to make you fall in love with him. He is bringing you to him. He comes to speak to you through the prophets that he has sent in your life, through your catechists, through the priests and through the brother or sister who tells you that He loves you. Prepare the way for these prophets who make straight the pathways so you can see him face to face.
Guard this Christmas by preparing the way and making straight the path. How do we do this? By listening, open your ears so that his love may enter you through the preaching. He wants you to hear this love so that it can enter you.