Sunday,
December 07, 2014
2nd Sunday of Advent
1st Reading: Is 40:1-5, 9-11
2nd Reading: 2 Pt 3:8-14
Gospel: Mk 1:1-8
This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in the book of Isaiah, the prophet, “I am sending my messenger ahead of you to prepare your way. Let the people hear the voice calling in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, level his paths.”
So John began to baptize in the desert; he preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All Judea and all the people from the city of Jerusalem went out to John to confess their sins and be baptized by him in the river Jordan.
John was clothed in camel’s hair and wore a leather garment around his waist. His food was locusts and honey. He preached to the people saying, “After me comes one who is more powerful than I am; I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
While Christmas is mere commemoration of Jesus’ historical coming that happened many years ago, there are compelling reasons why our preparations should not just be ceremonial. Among the reasons is the possibility that He will come again in an event called “the end of time”. With our ailing environment making itself felt more forcefully through calamities of surprising magnitude, the cosmic end is no longer a toy of doomsday prophets. If still you are not prepared to entertain the possibility of a cosmic end, think about your death. That will be enough to make you realize how serious the need to make spiritual preparations is. It is wise then to take Advent seriously as a death drill similar to the fire drill or earthquake drill we introduce in schools. As fire and earthquake can strike when least expected, death could strike anytime, Christmas or no Christmas!
This takes us to the urgency of John the Baptist’s message of repentance. Repentance is about sin, and sin is about the self we have enthroned in our hearts after ejecting God. This play of the word “sin” is instructive. The letter “I” in between stands for what Sigmund Freud calls the “ID” – that set of uncoordinated instinctual trends in a person in Freud’s structural model of the psyche. When this big “I” stands between the S (self) and the N (neighbor), SIN prevails barring the Lord’s entry.
Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of the Lord whether in the event of the “end of time” or in the event of our own death. In whatever form he comes, repentance dethrones the big “I” from our hearts, giving way to Christ who comes to us in any manner he deems appropriate.—Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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