2nd Sunday of Advent

Our readings for the Second Sunday of Advent are:

1. Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11
2. Psalms 85: 9-10 11-12, 13-14
3. II Peter : 8-14
4. Mark 1: 1-8

• Where are you?
• The Hebrew people have a cultural memory that spans millennia.  Unlike our Western culture with an attention span measured in terms of the next quarterly report.
• What makes you think that God is with you in all things?  Is it experience, things that others have told you, things you have read ...?
• Has that belief ever been sorely tested?
• Coming out of that time of testing, was your faith made stronger by what you experienced during that time of testing, or afterwards?

• Healing the land
• There is a poignant point in the movie Excalibur where Lancelot realizes that Arthur has found out about the infidelity between Lancelot and Guinevere.  In anguish Lancelot moans "The land is without a king, and the king is without a land" suggesting that the very land is suffering because of recent events.
• Do you think that there is a justice for the land, the earth, the cosmos?
• What role do we have in making that justice happen?
• How does such justice come into our world with Christ?

• Looking forward to ...
• How would you define "the day of the Lord"?
• How can we hasten that day's coming?
• Are we obliged to help others be ready for that day?

Or:

• If things in this life are put here, at our disposal, to teach us of the things of heaven, why is it so easy to get caught up in them, let them become an end in themselves?
• What are "these things"?  Is it just possessions, or does it extend to respect, success, friendships, associations, ...?
• How is it possible to put "these things" into their proper perspective?
• Is there any way to help each other in that work? 

• Between the times
• Sometimes I wonder what it was like in those days to receive John the Baptist's baptism of water, emerge from the Jordan, and then ask the inevitable question "now what?"
• Think of a time in your life when you suddenly saw yourself in a whole new light.
• How did that change your priorities?
• How did that change your actions?
• How did you make that transition, and yet maintain your day to day imperatives like making the mortgage payment, getting the groceries home, ad getting the kids off to school?
• Do you ever wish you were living the monastic life?

Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Why do I place my trust in God?
2. How am I bringing justice to the world around me?
3. What am I readying myself for?
4. How am I living the prophetic moments in my life?

Shalom!