Summary
We need to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord by repenting and removing obstacles that keep us from Him. God has done great things in our lives and will faithfully help us in preparing for His coming.
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Reflective Study Guide Questions
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths … all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Luke 3:4, 6)
You can find the readings for the second Sunday of Advent here at usccb.org.
Reflective Questions
- How did Sarah describe the desert landscape of Isaiah’s and Baruch’s prophecies? Why is that a particularly good image for us to keep in mind as we prepare to welcome Jesus into our hearts and lives in a new way?
- The Responsorial Psalm (126:1–6) reflects on the Old Testament return of exiled Israel to the Promised Land. Where is God’s initiative evident in the psalm? What about this psalm gives you hope for the future?
- What “roadwork” is needed in your life this week? What sins or distractions stand in the way of Jesus coming to you? What will you do to prepare?
- Re-read the 2nd reading (Phil 1:4-6, 8-11). What strength or comfort does it provide you with today?
Lectio Divina: Luke 3:2b–6
Continue praying with the Gospel, with which Sarah closed her talk (or choose another 2nd Sunday reading, found here), using this guide:
- PRAY
+ Come Holy Spirit, speak to me as I read your Word.
- READ (reading—lectio)
Read the passage several times. What does it say? What word or words stand out to you? Write them here and pause a moment with them. Receive them in your heart, listening closely for the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
- REFLECT (meditation—meditatio)
What does the passage mean? What do you hear the Lord saying to you?
- RESPOND (prayer—oratio)
What is the Lord asking of you? Talk to the Lord about what you hear.
- REST (contemplation: contemplatio)
Remain quiet for a moment in his loving embrace.
- PRAY (adapted from St Paul’s prayer in the 2nd reading)
Lord, as I read and respond to your word, may my love increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that I may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. Amen.
Take advantage of the healing power of the Sacrament of Penance as you prepare the way of the Lord to come to you at Christmas. The USCCB offers several examinations of conscience here.
For a way to more deeply meditate on the readings throughout the week either leading up to or following Sunday, download Receive the Word! A Bible Reading Plan for Advent – Year C.
Text: Prepare Your Soul, Repent Praying with Scripture, part 2
Hi, I am Sarah Christmyer, continuing our journey through the Advent readings as we prepare our hearts for Christmas by pondering the Word of God. Let’s start with a prayer, and I’d like to pray actually with this week’s collect.
Opening Prayer
In the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Almighty and merciful God, may no earthly undertaking hinder those who set out in haste to meet your Son, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to His company, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, Amen. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.
John the Baptist
You know, this week, this second week of Advent, we are going to meet a great figure of Advent, John the Baptist, and he’s actually going to be with us for the rest of the season. Luke calls him John, the Son of Zechariah, and that reminds us that this is John who was the baby born to the old Zechariah and Elizabeth, really a miracle baby, if you think about it, the baby who leaped in his mother’s womb when Mary approached at the visitation. And so John was excited about the coming of Christ from the moment of his conception, probably, definitely from the womb, and now here he is in our gospel reading today, all grown up, calling everybody to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
So we meet him in Luke’s Gospel, this is chapter three. We meet him in the desert just as Isaiah had predicted. And Luke quotes his prophecy here. He says, “A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding path shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'”
You know, I never really thought about that image very much until I visited Israel and was in the Judean desert, which is probably the place where John the Baptist was and that Isaiah’s talking about here, and it’s not the kind of desert that I always had in my mind, long stretches of flat sand and blowing hills or whatever. It’s really a rugged, wild place, and there are mountains and there are deep valleys and crevices and it would really be hard to make your way along it, especially if you had any kind of caravan of people or anything like that, and so if a king wanted to make a triumphal entry into the city and cross a desert like that, before he could do it, they would have to do exactly what is described there.
They’d have to fill in all the gullies and the crevices and cracks and they’d have to mow down the mountains and make a way straight for him to come, and that’s the image that we’re supposed to have in our minds here, that of preparing the way of the Lord, like a city might prepare for the coming of a king to visit them in that land, so just think about that though. If you wanted to prepare the way of the Lord, you have to bring in the big trucks first and that’s going to be a good picture for us to have in mind as we start to think about how are we going to prepare our hearts for the Lord to come to them. The same image exactly gets used in the first reading, only it’s the people who are coming home from exile back to Jerusalem who are having the road made straight for them.
The Lord Has Done Great Things For Us
Baruch is a prophet who lived in the really horrible days at the end of the Babylonian conquest, so he sees the people taken off to exile, he sees the horrible destruction and all of that, and in the middle of it, he has this word of hope from God and he tells them to stop and look because God is leading the exiles home, rejoicing that they are remembered by God. So not to think that God forgets you in this exile that you’re in, but he sees this vision of them being led home rejoicing. And here’s how, he borrows from Isaiah also, he says,
“For God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God.” So God did make good on that promises, He brought the exiles home. But in the time of Jesus, the exiles had come home, they’d even rebuilt the temple, they were living their lives there again, but they’re still waiting for the king to come, for the king to come home to them and they can’t wait. And so hearing John’s word when he quotes this passage from Isaiah, they get excited because they know this is what he’s talking about. “Make the way ready for the Lord to come.” Now the responsorial Psalm looks back on that earlier, that first return of the exiles coming back from Babylon, and it says, “When the Lord brought back the captives of Zion, we were like men dreaming, then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with rejoicing. The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy.”
So this responsorial Psalm gives us the perspective that we should have when we’re reading these. When we feel caught like those first century Jews were between a promise that was fulfilled, but we’re still feeling kind of stuck in the middle because part of it is yet to come, that promise is meant to be ours when we’re stuck in the middle between. “The Lord has done great things for us.” Let’s look back, look at what the God has done. We are filled with joy, joy for the future because He will fulfill his promises also in the future.
So based on what God has done for us in the past, we can pray in hope with Israel and here’s what it says. “Restore our fortunes, oh Lord, like the torrents in the Southern desert, although they go forth weeping, carrying the seed to be sown, they shall come back rejoicing, carrying their sheaves.” So not just returning empty-handed, fruitful, carrying their sheaves with them. That’s the sheaves of wheat that have grown up new.
I want to point out here God’s initiative in this whole thing. He says, “The Lord has done great things for us.” And in the first reading, it’s God who commands what you might call the roadworks, the bulldozing, the leveling of the way for them to come home. Think about the pictures this fall of the horrible hurricane down South. We saw roads that were demolished and bridges that came down and I thought about those ripped-up roads. That’s what that desert would’ve been like to cross. But it also is a picture of like the political turmoil, the obstacles that they had to come home just to be let free to be able to go home, and then again, this spiritual chasm that exists between a people who have turned away from God, and God, so many ways to look at this picture that we have.
A Penitential Season
And remember, God took the initiative to bring them home, not only to bring them home, but then to send His Son to give us a way out of the wilderness of sin, so not just coming home from exile, but to save from all the things that hold us back and make our lives miserable and so on, all the mess of our personal lives. So spiritually, at least now, He comes to do that, and then definitively at the end of time that we’re waiting for. John the Baptist invites us to cooperate in that work of redemption by what? Preparing a place in our hearts because our hearts can get like that desert, you know, full of stones and valleys, obstacles to God’s work, hills, places to hide out in, chasms, places to fall in, you know, sin has that effect on us. Things done, things left undone. Things we need to get forgiveness for.
If you can’t see the Lord coming this Advent, if you can’t see Him coming towards you, maybe that’s why. Maybe your soul is filled with obstacles. This is a time for repairing the turf, for lifting all those things to God and repenting for the forgiveness of sins as John the Baptist calls us to do. So it’s time, now, this week would be a great time to take advantage of the Sacrament of Reconciliation because that is exactly where that happens. We can take all the junk that’s in our hearts and offer it up and God will clear it away and make the way smooth for us.
Advent, you might know, is a penitential season. We forget that in the excitement of all the preparation and the gifts and everything, but it’s penitential. We need to resist that temptation that we have to make all of our preparation about the festivities. That’s for the Christmas season. Let’s use this season for what it is and get our hearts truly ready for the Lord.
The second reading, I love, it really gives us a note of comfort in this process, which might be a little bit daunting for some of us. So St. Paul is praying for the Philippians, but he’s also praying for us. And hear what he says, he says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus,” for the rest of your life. He will continue to complete that good work that He has begun in you. So we have to do our part, but ultimately it’s His work. He wants us to be free from sin, to be free from obstacles and things that drag us down, even more than we do, so He will be with us to complete this process and to help us on our way.
There is a lot that we can use in our Lectio Divina here today, but what I’d like to do is to meditate on just that little passage from Isaiah that Baruch and Luke both draw from as it appears in the gospel. It can be preparation for a deeper examination of conscience that I hope that you’ll do on your own when you’re home in your own prayer time with your own personal Lectio Divina. But here, we’ll just pray together now. I will read that part of the gospel three times altogether. The first time, just simply listen to what is said, listen with your heart, hear what God might be saying to you. And then the second time, I’ll go a little bit slower. I might throw in a comment here and there to help your reflection, but listen to it spoken into your life and respond to God, talk to Him about it. And then the third time, simply listen and rest in His love. You can put yourself in God’s presence.
Luke 2:2-5
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit, speak to us as we hear Your word. “The Word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the desert. John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘A voice of one crying out in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'”
What word or phrase stood out to you that you might want to remember? I’m going to read this passage again, and as I do, listen for the Lord’s word to your heart. Listen to Him speaking to you and reflect on it in the silence that follows. And Lord, I pray that you will help each one of us to receive what you have for us today.
“The Word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the desert.” Why the desert? What is it about the desert that makes it easier to hear the Word of God? Maybe a lack of distractions? How can you go into a desert to hear God? How do you make a little desert in your life this week? “The Word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the desert, and John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘A voice of one crying out in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.'” Does Jesus have a straight shot into your heart? How can you prepare the way of the Lord? “Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low.”
What mountains and hills stand in the way of you seeing the Lord and Him coming to you that need to be leveled out? What’s missing from your life that should be filled in, what valleys, or maybe what sins of omission? What things have you not done? “The winding roads shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth.” Are you on a winding road? “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” All flesh. Not just you. All flesh shall see the salvation of God. What is the Lord saying to you in this passage? Do you hear Him asking you to do something? What is it? What is your response?
Take a minute and lift your soul. Lift your own prayer up to God. I’m going to read the passage one last time and you can continue that listening and answering God as you go, and then just be with the Lord and rest. “The Word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the desert. John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘A voice crying out in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'”
I encourage you to take this, any of these, actually, any of these readings, into your own private prayer time this week. Carve out time to do a good examination of conscience and to see your priest, to go to confession. Be open to God’s work in your life. Remember, “He that hath begun a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” He is your ally, your helper. He is working alongside you, so be open to Him. Allow Him to make a way into your heart, a straight path, so that he can come to you in a new way this Christmas. Let’s close now in prayer, in the words of Saint Paul from that reading.
Closing Prayer
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. “And this is my prayer, that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to discern what is of value so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. That is my prayer for each one of you. May God bless you as you read His Word.
About Sarah Christmyer
Sarah Christmyer is a Catholic author, Bible teacher, and speaker with a special love for lectio divina and journaling as ways to draw close to Christ in Scripture. She is general editor of the Living the Word Catholic Women’s Bible from Ave Maria Press, as well as the co-developer and founding editor of The Great Adventure Catholic Bible study program and author or co-author of more than a dozen books and Bible studies. Her book Becoming Women of the Word pairs lessons from women of the Old Testament with women she has known to explore “How to Answer God’s Call with Purpose and Joy.” Sarah serves as an adjunct faculty member at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. She blogs at ComeIntoTheWord.com.