1st Advent - Fr. Leo

“Come, let us climb the Lord mountain.”

Our first reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, chapter two, verses one through five, gives us a great image to guide our Advent journey.  First, the Lord’s mountain is established as the highest mountain.  This means that nothing is higher or more important than God.  Secondly, when it says, “All the nations shall stream toward it,”  we understand that all are called to climb to God; to seek God who is above all.

The top of this mountain is a union with God in prayer.  Through this union, we come to know God’s ways and such knowledge changes us into women and men of peace as we figuratively beat our swords into plowshares.  An example of this would be when through prayer we recognize a jealous and envious spirit in us that puts us at odds with others, we move from this awareness to the awareness that we are to love those who hurt us.  Such a response opens the door to the work of grace in our own hearts and in the hearts of others.

Advent in this light is a time of prayerful union with God, so that growing in his grace we may live in the peace of the Kingdom Christ came and comes to establish on earth as it is in heaven.  So let us consciously climb the mountain of God through spiritual reading, prayer and especially through the stillness of contemplation.  It is in that union that we go beyond our clattery minds and rest in the ground of our being in God.  Without words, we discover God with-in and our likeness to Christ, which grows with-in us, bringing peace to our being and into the world we too are called to redeem. 

May God help us climb his mountain this Advent, that we may come to the fullness of life in God as the community he calls us to be.  Then we will be clothed with virtue and become a fountain of peace for all.