It is hard to believe that we are already at the 4th Sunday of Advent and in a matter of days we will arrive at our celebration of the Nativity of the Lord. Thus we need to be reminded that there is an urgency concerning our preparation for Christ. We cannot give the excuse that we have an infinite amount of time to prepare for Him and thus we can get around to it later when it is more convenient. No, prepared or not Christmas will come. We will celebrate the birth of the Word made Flesh, He will come to us in the Most Holy Eucharist, and He will come again at the end of time.
Saint John the Baptist’s message is not to take your time or get around to it when it is convenient. Rather, the message of Saint John the Baptist comes with great urgency. Thus he instructs: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord: make straight His paths: every valley shall be filled: and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain: and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
So what does all of this mean for us? It means that we shall take every valley and hill of our life which is the many difficulties and crosses that we are called to embrace and not allow them to overcome us, but rather move towards the Lord. If one were to make a road they would need to fill it in order that the treacherous may become possible. Likewise, we must let nothing come in the way of the Lord and if an obstacle is found we must turn towards God and His grace in order that we may move forward. Just too we are told that that the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways plain. Thus there is a need for us to turn away from those sins to which we are attached to and all those ways and actions which are contrary to the Gospel and to the Church.
Again there is a great urgency for all of this because none of us will escape the passing of time and the reality of death. Prepared or not we will celebrate the Nativity of the Lord, the Lord will come again, and we will behold Him in the Most Holy Eucharist. We must realize that what we should be moving towards is truth itself for what we are moving towards is an encounter with Christ and thus truth itself. As Christ instructed in the Gospel of Saint John: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man come through to the Father, but by me.” As Christ would go onto state in the Gospel of Saint John: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
This brings us to our Gradual which states: “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him: to all that call upon Him in truth.” To this truth it was said in 1st Timothy: “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, Who will have all men saved, and to come to the knowledge of truth. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
As we prepare for the celebration of the Nativity of the Lord we must ask ourself if we are open to truth. In our day and age so many want to form a religion in their own image and likeness and not in the image and likeness of God. Truth is something that does not change while we are changing all the time and are not the basis of truth. We now prepare the way for the Lord; let us do so by coming to accept and follow the way of Truth. We begin to make straight the ways of the Lord by staying in search and being exceptive of Truth. This is the truth for which we must prepare during this Advent season.
