Happy First Friday of Advent! Welcome to this weekend’s Little Triduum and the opportunity to contemplate whether we would rather be timidly zig-zagging through a viper-infested, rock-strewn desert, or straightforwardly strolling a lush, fruit-laden, orchard.
Let us consider Sunday’s upcoming readings in the Light of the Grave:
This Sunday's Gospel is Matthew 3: 1-12 (from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said:
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord,
Make his paths straight.”
Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sad’ducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “you brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Jarred by the stern words of Saint John the Baptist, we must ponder the possibility that we not only have the power to transform that danger-filled desert into a teeming garden but we are, essentially, going to be an eternal component of one or the other. Each moment of our lives we are either mostly viper or mostly fruit tree.
Do people seek us out as a source for nourishment and greater life, or avoid us in fear of little injections of poison?
There are better days and worse days. Today can be a better day; a day of sacrifice and good work, a repentant self-pruning of sorts to make way for the healthy new growth from which might hang life-giving nourishment for the people God brings to our orchard – the people and the encounters which become more and more vivid as earthly life dims and Eternity comes increasingly into focus.
“May the God of endurance and encouragement
grant you to think in harmony with one another,
in keeping with Christ Jesus”
Blessed Second Sunday of Advent, Everybody!