Fr. Carlo Di Sopra, SX
SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
“Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight”!
Only when I came to Sierra Leone and I was assigned to a village in the North of the country I really understood the significance of the sentence that many prophets, starting from Isaiah to John the Baptist, would repeat to their people in order for them to get ready for the encounter with God: “Prepare a way, make the path straight”.
Bad roads mean isolation, being cut off from the life and opportunities of the others, many times it is risky: in case of sickness or accident, there will be no quick help coming that way. The first thing people in a village do, when they want to receive the visit of a distinguished person, is to prepare the road. The condition of the road shows how much that person is considered and welcomed. It tells also people in the village to what extent they are able to work together in harmony making, with the anticipated joy of the encounter, work light!
That is how it happens with God too.
But what is the road for God to come? What is the work I have to do in order for God to come to me, to my community? Or to any group of people at all?
“Treat each other in the same friendly way as Christ treated you...”, “be tolerant with each other so that, united in mind and voice, you might give glory to God...”. Jesus in fact came to live with the Jews not only for God to be faithful to his promise, but to get also the pagans to give glory to him. Putting the meaning of these sentences together, I understand which road God wants to be prepared for him, it is the road of my relationship with the others, my neighbour. My brothers and sisters are for me the road to prepare well and to walk on, so that God may find it easy and attractive for him to come. His presence will bring peace, the end of evil in the world and above all understanding of God. How clearly our world looks in need of this presence and intelligence today, “as a dry and weary land without water”!
What a beautiful promise and conclusion from Isaiah: “The country is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters swell the sea”!!! It will be like that person that at the age of sixty saw the sea for the first time: “How big this water is”!!!
The road for the Lord is my brother and sister. I can prepare it well for the Lord to come!
SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
“Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight”!
Only when I came to Sierra Leone and I was assigned to a village in the North of the country I really understood the significance of the sentence that many prophets, starting from Isaiah to John the Baptist, would repeat to their people in order for them to get ready for the encounter with God: “Prepare a way, make the path straight”.
Bad roads mean isolation, being cut off from the life and opportunities of the others, many times it is risky: in case of sickness or accident, there will be no quick help coming that way. The first thing people in a village do, when they want to receive the visit of a distinguished person, is to prepare the road. The condition of the road shows how much that person is considered and welcomed. It tells also people in the village to what extent they are able to work together in harmony making, with the anticipated joy of the encounter, work light!
That is how it happens with God too.
But what is the road for God to come? What is the work I have to do in order for God to come to me, to my community? Or to any group of people at all?
“Treat each other in the same friendly way as Christ treated you...”, “be tolerant with each other so that, united in mind and voice, you might give glory to God...”. Jesus in fact came to live with the Jews not only for God to be faithful to his promise, but to get also the pagans to give glory to him. Putting the meaning of these sentences together, I understand which road God wants to be prepared for him, it is the road of my relationship with the others, my neighbour. My brothers and sisters are for me the road to prepare well and to walk on, so that God may find it easy and attractive for him to come. His presence will bring peace, the end of evil in the world and above all understanding of God. How clearly our world looks in need of this presence and intelligence today, “as a dry and weary land without water”!
What a beautiful promise and conclusion from Isaiah: “The country is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters swell the sea”!!! It will be like that person that at the age of sixty saw the sea for the first time: “How big this water is”!!!
The road for the Lord is my brother and sister. I can prepare it well for the Lord to come!