Forgive us, Lord, for we have sinned.

12-10-2023Weekly ReflectionFr. Aruldoss

Dear sisters and brothers,

Good morning to you all. Advent is a time of waiting in hope for our Savior. On this second week of Advent, we continue our waiting and preparation for the Lord’s coming. In today’s First Reading through Isaiah God promises comfort and forgiveness to Jerusalem. He summons their courage and invites them to look beyond their present predicament to the time of renewal and restoration. The time of exile will end. God will gather his scattered people like a shepherd gathers his lambs. Using poetic metaphors, he calls them to change and conversion. “Let every valley be filled in and every mountain and hill be laid low. The second reading encourages us to grow in holiness.

Our Gospel passage from Mark takes up the cry of Isaiah from the First Reading, this time through the prophet John the Baptist. John instructs us just as Isaiah did to “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. His preaching and baptizing in the wilderness were meant to prepare the hearts and minds of the people for Jesus. He makes an explicit call to us to repent for the forgiveness of our sins. What is there to repent from? They include, those moments we have denied God through our words and actions, those moments we have failed ourselves and our neighbors, those times we have neglected the good we ought to do, those times we have gossiped and castigated others, those times we have not been true to ourselves, God, our neighbors and our country, and those times we have failed to live saintly and holy lives.

This Advent is the time to say, God we are sorry, forgive us for we have sinned! This is a very important condition for us to welcome Christ worthily, and this is what the prophets Isaiah, John the Baptist, and the Peter mean respectively by, “preparing a way for the Lord” and “living holy and saintly lives.” If we sincerely repent this season, then the salvation that Jesus brings will be ours, and we will be part of the new generation that he comes to transform and redeem by his love. If we clean up ourselves properly, we need not be afraid of the Day of the Lord, but simply look forward to it with joyful anticipation. Anticipation of the coming of the Lord should not merely inform our manner of life. Rather, it should motivate us to respond with repentance, holy and saintly living, godliness, and of course, joyful expectation of our salvation.

Have a Blessed and Happy Sunday!