Week Two of Advent

As we come to the close of the year in the secular world, the media will produce a "retrospective" of 2011 we will hear of those famous personali-ties who died this year, the best and worst of movies, dress, and the all-important bloopers. We will be forced to remember just what comprised the year 2011 like it or not as the year fades into a collage of the past 12 months.

But as the Church ends it liturgical year, we do not re-gurgitate the past but rather look to the future. In fact, the read-ings of the Advent season points us to what lies ahead the birth of God made man, the Resurrection of the dead, and life everlasting in a nutshell. And as we contemplate what lies ahead for each of us, we do so in the midst of the Word of God. Let us look this second Sunday in Advent to our second reading (2 Peter) and listen to what the Apostle tells us:

The Lord’s time is not our time. His plan for us and for the whole of Creation is not limited to human understanding or time frame God is bigger than that. And in His plan, God wishes not to loose any of those He created (you and me). His hope and desire is that none should perish, but that all should come to know His love and mercy through our repentance. In this we become holy and righteous. In our admitting our guilt and faults, in recognizing our need for Him, in seeing that He calls us to Him and His love, we are forgiven. Coming to Him in the sac-rament of Reconciliation which Jesus Himself created and gave to His Church and thus seeking His Mercy this is the hope of God.

In today’s world culpability for wrong doing or sin is not something we like to think about. Considering what "I do" as wrong or sinful is not "normal" in today’s modern and enlight-ened mind. Rather, what "I do" is "ok’ because I am a "good person." In this mindset we then hold God at a distance far from our hearts. But God tells us, and Peter reiterates, that He is patient and for Him a day is like a thousand years…though we do not know when the Lord is coming…"

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire and the earth and everything done on it will be found out." Nothing will be hidden. All will be known. God has told us this. He has warned us. He has also showed us how to act, how to be, what to do.

In order to begin the path to repentance though, we need hope. And that’s what today’s scriptures offer us. In today’s first reading a people who are beginning to doubt God’s promises are given hope. The prophet Isaiah offers the exiled Jewish people in Babylon the promise of consolation. This exile of the Jewish peo-ple means they will become slaves again. But the prophet tells them to continue to trust in the Lord even in their despair and He will lead them out of slavery into the Promised Land.

In the second letter of Peter, hope and encouragement are give to those who despair about the timing of the Lord’s sec-ond coming. People think that God is working too slowly. They hoped for expected, even demanded the second coming to happen right away. They were disappointed. But Peter tells them to live lives that are faithful and holy while they wait for God. God works slowly because He respects human freedom and al-lows growth to happen in small and often imperceptible ways.

The Gospel offers the hope of a new beginning: the birth of Jesus Christ, a little child in a backwater town, poor and a refuge. But His birth will change the entire meaning of life, which is now meant to end in friendship with God.

New beginnings are often difficult, even when the new beginning or change is chosen, but it is especially difficult when change and new beginnings are thrust upon us. Forced change can lead to questions such as "Why did God let this happen to me?" or "Where is God now?" God is always near! He is never silent. He is gentle and caring, like a shepherd who knows and loves His flock. To trust in God and His providence requires great faith. Even the disciples who walked with Jesus and saw Him at work struggled with faith. We are no different. And questioning faith is not evil or wrong as long as we do not question it with the attitude of just giving up. But if we question like Thomas, with a desire to know the Truth, then our questioning will only lead to God who is Truth. Our path to friendship with God takes time. We all travel at different speeds and on different roads. What we cannot become is closed to or cut off from God’s forgiveness and mercy, for if we are, then we cannot become His friends.

As we travel through Advent this year, let us be with the Church and look to what lies ahead: the birth of God made man in Jesus Christ, the Resurrection, and life everlasting. All things that give us hope.