Advent is a time of penance and conversion, but it is also characterized by Messianic hope. The early part of Advent until 16th December we reflect on the Second Coming of Christ and prepare for it. This is why the readings urge us to be watchful in prayer and good works.
The prophets of the Old Testament heralded the coming of Christ. Last Sunday, St John the Baptist appears as a dividing line between the Old Testament and the New Testament. His vocation, even from his mother’s womb was to prepare the people to receive the Kingdom of God. St John offered a baptism of repentance, and many received his baptism confessing their sins. However, the Baptism Jesus offers is different and far greater. Through Faith and Baptism, we enter His Mystical Body, the Church.
In the first reading, there is a message of hope for the Jewish exiles. God will show mercy and bring them back to the Promised Land because God is always Faithful.
The second reading teaches that Jesus enables us to leave our sinful past behind through repentance and that is a cause of joyful hope.
Before the coming of Christ and the fullness of life He brings, it was like a man who was stuck in a pit which was deep and dark. The devil had great influence over people’s lives. This pit was too tall for the man to reach the top and lift himself out. The walls were too smooth for him to find handholds and footholds to clamber up and out. He was helpless in the bottom of the pit. He needed someone to throw him a rope or lower him a long ladder. But even if someone were to lower a ladder, the man will only be saved if he freely chooses to step onto it and climb up and out of the pit. The ladder will do him no good unless he uses it.
We are that man, and the pit is the fallen world that had been darkened and separated from God by Original Sin and personal sins. Jesus Himself is the ladder that God the Father lowers down to us. But we must freely choose to welcome Him, listen to Him and obey Him. God will never remove our free will to choose.
Taking the ladder means repenting of sin and overcoming selfishness and all self-centred tendencies, because sin and self-indulgence blocks progress up the ladder of salvation.
This is the message of St John the Baptist in last Sunday’s Gospel and the message the Church wants to give us, for Advent is a time of steadfast prayer and growth in charity. Someone once said: It is not science, but charity that transformed the world with the coming of Christ. Out of love, countless martyrs laid down their lives for the Faith. Only a few people go down in history as people of science, but all can leave the world a better place by their charity.
We are preparing for the Birthday of our Saviour. He wants to come to each one of us in a more profound and spiritual way this Christmas. But the Lord requires that we make space in our hearts through spending quality time in prayer, for example the daily Holy Rosary, Lectio Divina, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, Eucharistic Adoration (available 24/7 at our Shrine at Lower Chittering) and a good Confession. Jesus is the ladder to Heaven and the only One who can give us true peace, fulfilment and happiness in this life and eternal life in the next. There is no one who goes to the Father, but through Jesus. Let’s take the ladder, die to selfishness and invite The Lord to reign in our lives with His Holy Will. Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever.