What is Advent?

by Fr. Jess Ty  |  12/08/2024  |  Weekly Reflection

Advent is preparation for the coming of the Lord as our Savoir or Judge. Mary Immaculate can help us best prepare for welcoming Jesus into our hearts, the way she was prepared by the Father to be a fit dwelling place of our Savior. (This year’s celebration of Immaculate Conception is on Monday 12/9.)

According to Dr. Bergsma, read in conjunction with our Gospel this Sunday, St Luke’s’ description of the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist, Baruch set the Baptist’ mission in the larger context of the prophetic hope for the new exodus and its “highway” is not so much geographical as spiritual realities. Israel’s true exile is spiritual rather than physical. The Baptist’s way of repentance is the true “highway” by which Israel will begin to travel back to the New Temple, which is Christ Himself.

The primary problem of the Israelites was not the lack of roads. The transportation system in the Roman empire was, in fact, quite good. If they wanted to return to their ancestral land they could, however, large groups of them chose to live elsewhere around the Mediterranean, in places where they had found a good living. So, the problem was their sins: their spiritual estrangement with God. For this reason, the “road” that John the Baptist offers is repentance, expressed through the waters of Baptism.

“Every valley shall be filled” refers to hope and encouragement and new life granted to the poor, the oppressed, and the lowly. “every mountain and hill be made low” refers to the humbling of the proud, the repentance that the strong and arrogant must undergo in order to receive God’s salvation. The “winding roads” and “rough ways” refer to the twist and turn of human heart, contorted by sin, needs to be “simplified” or “straightened” by honest confession of sin.

May Mary Immaculate help us all to welcome Jesus in our hearts the Mary welcomed Him in her Immaculate Heart.