Prepare the way of the Lord!

John the Baptist was wonderful wasn't he? He never let anything come in the way of what he believed was what God wanted him to do.  He went straight for the jugular in a spiritual sense of course! Uncompromising? tough? serious? No holds barred?  A loner?  It's possible that he was all of those things, but the essential John has been captured by the readings for this second Sunday of Advent which are all about preparation, expectancy, forgiveness. John believed in preparation. "Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight!" he roared. Not a man to be ignored, I'd say, wouldn't you? He'd have made a good site manager on a modern building project.  No delays possible, no excuses, no procrastination - just get on with the job in hand - "This is what the Boss wants, let's do it for him."  You know, we like people like that - the ones who get things done, who make our lives peaceful and orderly, who help us to see where we should be going.  It makes for a stress-free existence.  But John meant a lot more than that.  He wanted us to repent!
Of what? We ask ourselves.  Well, for a start, our self-centredness, our cluttering up our lives with non-essentials, our forgetfulness of the need to pray. Advent is a lovely time. It is a time for that special peace which Jesus came to give us. It is a time for that quiet joy which is its hallmark.  Our Foundress told us:

"I want you all to be joyful at this time.  Why should we not be joyful to welcome him who comes to bring us joy?" No reason really, except the things we hold on to which block the way to God's peace - the worst one is unforgiveness. We are hurt, we smart, we get angry and want to hit back. We persuade ourselves that it isn't our fault = the other one owes us an apology!  And we refuse to be the first to reach out to reconcile our differences.  I was once at a funeral of a mother of a large family.  She had worked all her life for her children and then her grandchildren, but some sort of grievance broke out between some members of the family, and they stopped speaking to one another.  They visited the mother when she was dying on different days so that they could never meet.  She begged them to reconcile their differences but they refused.  At the  cemetery they took up their positions on either side of the open grave....  I have never forgotten that image - the mother who loved them all in the middle of two implacable enemies, both of whom wept for her.  John would say to us today:" Don't let the sun go down on your anger!"  It is good advice.  Advent is a time of mercy, of forgiveness, of peace.  "I will hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace..." we read in the Psalm for the Second Sunday, and the response is: "Let us see O Lord your mercy, and give us your saving help!"  Well, how can we expect mercy when we refuse to give it to others? 

Let's try to make this Advent special by ridding ourselves of the things that make us and others unhappy. That's what John meant by preparing the way of the Lord.  Have a lovely Advent.  We will be praying for you all!