Jesus the Messiah always comes, and so we for our part must always be prepared, always be preparing.

Second Sunday in Advent. December 6th, 2009
Today, we hear in the Gospel of St. Luke, St. John the Baptist announcing the appearance of Christ. St. John the Baptist is a central figure in this time of Advent because he is the man of both preparation and haste. He gives up everything, makes way, hastily goes into the desert and there waits expectantly for the coming of the Lord. And he does so without knowing the identity of the messiah. Nevertheless in faith and in the silence of the desert, John is ever so attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit which will announce the Messiah coming.
This theme of God’s coming is important to understand. Holy Mother Church during Advent stresses the three “comings” of Christ: that at Christmas, that at the end of time and the third and most important, that into our hearts. This "third interior coming," happens primarily through the Holy Eucharist. The coming of God is not just a past or future event, it is a present continuous action- He came, He comes and He is coming. In other words, Jesus the Messiah always comes, and so we for our part must always be prepared, always be preparing.
St. John the Baptist appears today in order to tell us that God is definitely coming and that we need to prepare the way; and do so now! John does this by preaching repentance--the need for a change of attitude and a change of heart. He is the voice crying out in the wilderness. The wilderness is the desert. If you have ever been in the desert, you know how quiet it is, how lonely it is. When a voice is heard out there, there is nothing that blocks it; it is totally smooth, no mountains to deflect it no valleys to absorb it. This is a good metaphor for how we listen to the voice of God.
To hear the voice of God, we first must be quiet. Our hearts must be open to truly listen, not just hear. We hear things all the time, but do we block them out? Or do we really listen, really try to understand and make changes in our lives according to what we are being told. Look at our own relationships for example- do we listen or just hear when our loved ones speak to us? …It can be like a woman saying to the man she loves or a mother saying to a child, "You are hearing me, but are you really listening to what I am saying to you.” More than often, we just hear what the other says, but we don't really listen to what they are saying.
With God it is the same: we must first not just hear his words, but listen with our whole hearts and minds. Then, and only then can we respond to His words with all the strength of our will. We respond first by asking God to forgive us of our sins- all that takes us away from God. Maybe this is a reason we do not want to listen- because deep down, we know God is asking us to reform ourselves and to change things in our lives which are keeping us from a deeper relationship with Him.
God speaks most clearly to us in the desert, which is a metaphor for silence. When we are silent before God, the first person we encounter is not God but ourselves, and the truth about ourselves. When I was first discerning my vocation as a priest, I went into the “desert.” I lived in for two years away from friends and family, alone in a strange town. To encounter yourself is really a difficult thing- we are afraid of really encountering ourselves and in particular encountering the truth about our sins.
In the silence God convicts of our lack of love, our sin. Is this why modern man seems to hate silence so much, why even in the liturgy, the Holy Mass, we try to fill up every moment with noise leaving no room for silence? In the worship of God, as our Holy Father Benedict, has said over and over again, we must begin to make room for more times of silence in order to hear the whisper of God's voice, even if it is difficult.
When we do spend some time in silence, we encounter ourselves in the presence of God. It is then that we can open our hearts to God and receive more deeply his love and mercy. We really do not have to be afraid; the experience of God’s forgiving love is far greater and more joyful than our fear. We face God and admit the truth about ourselves, we can then receive forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession so that we are enabled by grace to live deeper the live of faith, all because we have encounter God personally and intimately in the silence.
With this increase of faith we can move mountains; that is, remove the mountains in our lives that block us from listening and responding fully to the voice of God. We can remove especially, the great mountain of our pride of our selfishness and lack of love. We can remove whatever else is needed in order to make straight and smooth the way for the Lord to come and live with us and in us more fully.
Our Blessed Lord is kind and compassionate. He knows we are sinners; nothing is hidden from Him. He still speaks to us, most often in the quiet silence of our hearts. He says, “come to me the way you are and I will help you to change your life, to remove the obstacles, I will strengthen your Faith and Your Hope, and I Will strengthen your love, your charity for I will give you a new heart, a heart for love alone”.
Let us be honest, in this time of year it is so, so difficult to quiet ourselves in order to listen to the voice of God. We can become so busy with the material preparation for Christmas that the ever small still voice of God can be crowded out. This Advent season of grace invites us into moments of quiet amidst the hustle and bustle in order to stop and hear the voice of God calling us to repentance, calling us to turn back to Him and toward Him more fully. We can do this especially in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, who is God Himself among us.
We should not be discourage of our past patterns of sins and our past failures. Advent is a time when we renew our hope for the future- the coming of Jesus re-enkindles in us a deeper desire for holiness. But Jesus is coming now, He will not delay. Christian hope means to possess now through grace, that for which we hope; and that for which we hope is Jesus, and His coming more deeply into our souls.
To listen, really listen to God's Word, is to let it enter into your whole being, let it take possession of your all desires and your whole way of life. If we listen in this way, the Son with the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit will come now and dwell in us fully now and take possession of our heart now; then we will then prepared for the future come what may.
Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict said to us;
“In Advent, the liturgy often repeats and assures us, as though seeking to defeat our mistrust, that God "is coming": He comes to be with us, in each one of our situations; he comes to live among us, to live with and in us; he comes to fill the distances that divide and separate us; he comes to reconcile us with himself and with one another. He comes in the history of humanity to knock on the door of every man and woman of good will to offer individuals, families and peoples the gift of fraternity, concord and peace.
Therefore, Advent is par excellence the time of hope, in which believers in Christ are invited to remain in vigilant and active expectation, nourished by prayer and by a concrete commitment of love. May Christ's approaching nativity fill the hearts of all Christians with joy, serenity and peace! To live this Advent period more authentically and fruitfully, the liturgy exhorts us to look at Mary most holy and to undertake spiritually with her the path to the cave of Bethlehem. When God knocked on the door of her youth, she received him with faith and love. In a few days, we will contemplate her in the luminous mystery of her Immaculate Conception. Let us be attracted by her beauty, reflection of divine glory, so that "the God that is coming" will find in each one of us a good and open heart, which he can fill with his gifts.”

Let us follow these beautiful words of our Holy Father and turn to Our Lady for help. As Mother of the New Advent, she is the one that can help us prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas, not only for His coming at the Christmas to come in couple of weeks, but Jesus' coming in the Eucharist at the Christmas of this Holy Mass, so that we may be prepared when He comes again in Glory. Then we can join Him fully in the Eternal Christmas of heaven.