By: FR. Jose “Joesum” Sumampong, Jr.
Second Sunday of Advent (Year B)
Isaiah 40 1-11 / Psalm 85: 9-14 /
2 Peter 3:8-14 / Mark 1:1-8
TRULY PREPARING THE WAY OF THE LORD
Word: Today we read the beginning of the Gospel according to Saint Mark. All this year – the Year B – we shall proclaim mainly this gospel of Mark.
The first word of the gospel according to St. Mark is the very same—and certainly not accidental—as the very first word of the entire Bible: *In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). St. John too uses the same word at his prologue: “In the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1). For Matthew in his gospel: “Now this is how the birth (beginning) of Jesus Christ” (Mt 1:18); and Luke writes: “I too have decided, after investigating those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses” (Lk 1:3). Thus both Matthew and Luke evoke this reality of beginning.
All of the four evangelists suggest that, through Jesus, the Plan of God begins anew: a new creation is so to say beginning! This season of Advent which begins now is also, each year, an occasion for us to make a new start.
The gospel of Mark does begin with a quotation from the Old Testament: As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths’ ” (Mk 1:2-3). Jesus is not a “meteor” arriving from another planet. He is fitted into the history of a people. He was “expected”, announced, prepared for. The passage of the Old Testament henceforth proclaimed every Sunday at Mass, after Vatican II, is not a novelty in the modern Church. Indeed the first Christians—those of Mark, as in Matthew, Luke or John—were accustomed to read the Scriptures, and to apply them to Jesus.
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Order: Let us not imagine that we are going to really meet God—for example, at Christmas—without “preparing” his coming, without purifying ourselves, without working at our conversion, at our change of life.
Let’s listen to the gospel: John (the) Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins (Mk 1:4-5). John the Baptist did not mince words with his listeners. He told them to change their behavior totally. To turn themselves completely over. This is the meaning of the word “metanoia”, which we translate as “conversion”, “repentance”.
As Christmas comes nearer, the Catholic Christians are asked to receive “the Sacrament of Reconciliation” for the forgiveness of their sins.
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Realities: (2015) During the war, five Sisters, two priests and one Brother walked through the bush from the Sepik to Benabena in the Eastern Highlands for four months to escape being captured by Japanese soldiers. They began at Timbunke on the Sepik River and 123 days later they walked into Benabena.
There were no roads, only swamps and rivers and steep mountains. But one thing helped them very much. It was this: two patrol officers: Jim Taylor and Dan Leahywalked down from Hagen to meet them. They met, and then the officers showed them the way out. They knew the way, and that made the difference. Christ says, “I am the way.” (Frank Mihalic, SHOWING TIlE ROAD)
o0oDirection: Merciful Father, I am guilty of sin. I confess my sins before you and I am sorry for them. Your promises are just; therefore I trust that you will forgive me my sins and cleanse me from every stain of sin. Jesus himself is the propitiation for my sins and those of the whole world. I put my hope in his atonement. May my sins be forgiven through his name, and in his blood may my soul be made clean. (Prayer of Contrition)