Mark 1, 1-8
Sunday, 10th December 2023 (2 Advent B)
“It is written in the prophet Isaiah: ‘I am sending my messenger before you to prepare the way for you. A voice cries out in the desert: Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight for him… John baptised in the desert: he preached that they should be converted and baptised, so that their sins might be forgiven them”.
This Sunday the figure of John the Baptist appears in the Word of God, calling us to a change in our lives. He announces that someone more important than he is coming. He asks us to prepare the way for the Lord. Then all will see God’s salvation. It is an announcement and a call to hope, to trust in the promises announced by God, that they will come true. But we need to have a positive and hopeful attitude.
But we live so well, so comfortably, that any change in our lives is looked upon with suspicion. We are very conservative in this. We say that we are good, that we do no harm to anyone, that we are in compliance… Are these not justifications for doing nothing? If we look deep down in our hearts, being honest with ourselves, we will always find “ways to be made smooth, crooked paths to be made straight”.
The Gospel tells us that many Pharisees and Sadducees came to John to be baptised, and that he rebuked them with very strong words, for they had to bear the fruits that conversion demanded. We too must show our conversion with concrete actions, so that when “he who comes after me” arrives, he will baptise us with the Holy Spirit and we will be “wheat gathered into his barn”.
May our Advent waiting make us grow in hope and expectation, for the Saviour is very near.
Juan Ramón Gómez Pascual, cmf
How do you show your conversion?
