2nd Sunday of Advent - A Reflection by Fr. Leo

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (MT 3:1)

Clearly “repentance,” is the theme of today’s gospel.  So what then is “repentance” and how do we go about repenting?

The first requirement for repentance is a sincere desire on the individual’s part to be open to a change of mind and heart.  Secondly, one strives to put on the mind of Christ.  Whatever keeps us from living-in-Christ is what needs to be transformed.  This transformation is repentance. 

The heart of repentance is striving to live according to the will of God and not our own will.  This is what Christ did and what we are called to do.  Yes, we have free will, but God will never force himself upon us.  Ironically though, our true freedom and happiness comes in living, “not our will, but God’s will be done.” Faith embraces the surrender of self to a loving God whom we believe will bring us to the fullness of life, love and joy.

For all of us there is a fundamental tension between God’s will and the will of god we make ourselves out to be.  Thomas Merton writes about how we cleverly conceal our goddess, sometimes by pretending to be virtuous when unconsciously we may simply be cleverly controlling. It takes a lot of humility to become self-aware of our true motives.  When our hearts are not pure, Merton says, “they are filled with fears, anxieties, conflicts, doubts, ambivalences, hesitations, self-contradictions, hatreds, jealousies, compulsive needs and passionate attachments. Sound familiar?

In contrast the life of a pure soul becomes exceedingly simple. We no longer keep track of other people’s faults because we don’t need to in order to leverage ourselves in one way or another.  We come to live in the loving mercy of God and live in love for all others.  This is the image we have in our first reading today where the cow and the lion are together without one being the victim of the other. Seem impossible to get there?  For us it is, but not for the grace of God.

Advent is a time of emptying ourselves so that God can be born in us.  When we take time to quiet ourselves and pray, we open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit within us.  So let us pray the Advent refrain, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come!”