Dear Parishioners,
When things aren’t going well for us and life is a series of miseries, we need some TLC (tender loving care). With the effects of the pandemic, loss of income, employment, socialization etc, many around the world are suffering and could use some comfort. In the first reading from Isaiah (Is 40:1-5, 9-11), the people of Israel also have been suffering—for 50 years having been exiled to Babylonia. But now God is offering comfort to his people, for her slavery is coming to an end. Her guilt of infidelity in worshipping pagan gods has been expiated (forgiven) through 50 years of forced labor and exile. What a great sense of relief that must have been to the people. God will now come back to his people and lead them home over a highway built by leveling the mountains of their pride and filling in the valleys of their indifference. In short, they must repent.
We hear St. Peter says something similar in the second reading (2 Pt 3:8-14) as he urges the people to be patient with God, for God shows them “generous patience, since he wants none to perish but all to come to repentance.”
Finally, the gospel shows John the Baptist bringing many to God through baptism after repenting and confessing their sins (Mk 1:1-8). So it would appear on this second Sunday of Advent that God is encouraging us to prepare for our Lord’s birthday by repenting and going to confession. That will make it easy for Jesus to come into our hearts.
Fr. Carl
