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09 dic 2018
09/12/2018 – 2nd Sunday in Advent - Year C

09/12/2018 – 2nd Sunday in Advent - Year C 

Reading 1 BAR 5,1-9   Psalm 125   Reading 2 PHIL 1,4-6. 8-11   Gospel LK 3,1-6

 

The prophet Baruch invites Jerusalem, that is to say its citizens, and with them, the whole people of God, to rejoice. The joy needs to be shown, because the people, enslaved and deported far away among pagans, can go back to serve the true and living God in freedom! The rejoicing is truly huge, because God himself prepares the way for his be making the mountains and the deep burrows even and making sure that even the forests make travelling easy! The return of the people becomes God’s glory, showing in this way all the peoples his greatness, the truth of his love, the beauty of his mercy. When does this return happen? The coming back of the deported people happened then, as the Prophet announced, but that was a sign, an image, the anticipation of the returning authentic and definitive there is going to be complete with the coming of Jesus in the world stop Jesus is the even way that makes possible to approach God the for the sinful men, even for pagans. It is him letting the people live the full communion with its God, a communion then is not blocked or darkened by sin, it’s him letting us show a full joy, free from the fear to get disappointed, and joy made perfect by the fact that all the gaps, left in the human heart by seen previous generations, has been filled by him!

Today we can hear the same announcement of the prophet Baruch repeated by John the Baptist. He is referring to it, because it is about to happen. It is about to happen because Jesus is already present among the people, he only needs to be pointed out and revealed.

John’s voice fills the Desert! John’s voice travels through the region of the Jordan, the region that is the border between the people of Israel and the other peoples, the region crisscrossed by roads originating far away, at the edges of the world. John’s words needs to be prop everywhere because God’s love, that they are revealing, it is a love gathering all men, even the pagans, in the same listening moment to create a single people.

John’s voice fills time and history, overcomes the noise of the names of whoever rules, oppressing, that makes themselves made richness and violence. John’s words start to put aside Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Erodes, Philip, Lisania, Hannah and Caiaphas. They, the great ones, are not great anymore, because the one freeing the man’s soul from their power is coming, leaving them, in case, just power over the body. Their presence and their name suddenly make the poor bend like under a big load, while the one who is coming straightens them and make them lift their heads!

 John’s word is announcing forgiveness, the forgiveness them and we receive when they will welcome the one who is coming. Now they are preparing themselves to meet him recognizing that they need him, humiliated themselves point of getting in the water, like dirty creatures that need to clean themselves of the mud. It is really necessary to prepare yourself to meet Jesus, prepare yourself to be humble and not demanding, to have a heart that knows how to wait, otherwise He will pass by and you will not be aware of it, or even you will think that His passage is not useful to you.

The apostles join in John’s ministry, a service of preparation of the hearts to meet the Lord Jesus. Saint Paul, writing to the Philippians uses exactly this expression, wishing that his relationship with them based on love bore as fruit their readiness to welcome Jesus Christ! But the same community itself it is all busy to spread the Gospel, the good news that not only makes the hearts happy, but pushes them to desire a stable unity with the God of love, the Lord Jesus’ Father! On our part, then, preaching the Gospel with our life and words, we keep helping the men of this world to desire and feel the presence of the one who can fill their heart.

May these weeks in Advent bring the fruits of the living and persistent welcoming of Jesus, and also a desire that he is welcomed by some people that live with us or close to us, a desire that is going to become prayer and works of selfless charity, as well as, without denying prudence and good judgment, saint and wise words that direct towards the Lord and the Savior!

Come, Lord Jesus, come!