Posted by The WORD in Other Words by Fr Atilano Corcuera SVD (Philippines) for 2nd Sunday of Advent
Gospel
Mt 3:1-2
A Christmas newsletter of the Pink Sisters at Hemady, Quezon City, carries a cute little story about a tiny angel who came to earth in order to see Jesus born in Bethlehem. When the angel landed on earth, however, he found himself on the wrong side of the world. So with the guidance of a star he had to travel a long distance to reach the Holy Land.
On the way there he saw so much misery, loneliness, violence, poverty, death, wars and refugees. When he finally reached Bethlehem, he was so excited and depressed at the same time. He asked an archangel standing by the crib a question that bothered him so much: “Why did God choose to be born in this ugly world?” The archangel, smiling, stooped down slightly and whispered to the tiny angel, “Precisely God chose this ugly world to take away all ugliness and miseries!”
In the 1st reading today the prophet Isaiah describes the beauty that will accompany the “shoot (that) shall sprout from the stump of Jesse . . .”
… the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb…
…the leopard shall lie down with the kid…
…the cow and the bear shall be neighbors…
…the baby shall play by the cobra‘s den…”
In truth the ugliness of our world is still here. And yet the seed of God‘s Kingdom had been sown. It is now up to us to speed up the spread of God‘s vision of a beautiful world. How? John the Baptist preached, “Repent and reform your lives!” St. Paul writes, “… Live in perfect harmony with one another according to the spirit of Christ Jesus …”
Advent is an ideal time to hitch our lives to that of Jesus, to continue his mission making our world, our communities, our families, a better place, because we are there.
