“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins. A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; The rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. A voice says, "Cry out!" I answer, "What shall I cry out?" "All mankind is grass, and all their glory like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it. (So then, the people is the grass.) Though the grass withers and the flower wilts, the word of our God stands forever." Go up onto a high mountain, Zion, herald of glad tidings; Cry out at the top of your voice, Jerusalem, herald of good news! Fear not to cry out and say to the cities of Judah: Here is your God! Here comes with power the Lord GOD, who rules by his strong arm; Here is his reward with him, his recompense before him. Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, Carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care.” ~NAB
GOSPEL READING: MATT. 18:12-14
"What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will be not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost." ~ NAB
REFLECTION
The first reading is challenging. Are you comfortable before our Lord, today? Are you happy with the direction of your life and the circumstances that surround you? Or, are you anxious, concerned, and in need of rest? Are you confident in God’s care for you or is there a bit of doubt in the back of your mind?
God speaks to us through his prophet today that God’s will is to give us comfort. Not a comfort of good fortune but the comfort of a compassionate God. One who speaks tenderly to his people, proclaiming that our sad days are gone and our sins are pardoned.
This message breaks forth in the midst of our lives regardless of where we are spiritually, but it is a special joy for those of us that sense we are in a spiritual desert.
How would you describe a spiritual desert? For me, it is when the excitement of life seems dry, lacking purpose, lacking fruit, and lacking growth. It’s that spiritual place where you don’t want to get up in the morning and face the day. The thought that “So much is not right in the world” runs deep within our minds. This is despair and it lurks in the desert. Do you sense it when you look out at the economic conditions of our city, state, and country? When gas prices go up? In the housing market? In the persistence of the war? Or maybe in the illness of a loved one or yourself? Maybe despair has risen up when a loved one moves out of state or in the breakup of a marriage.
Yet, in this the desert, a voice is heard, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight, in the wasteland, a highway for our God!”
Now, some may not be in the desert of despair, but we may experience the wasteland. Other translations call it the wilderness. When I think of a wilderness, I do not think of a desert but an overgrown woods or forest. A forest whose underbrush is so thick that you cannot walk through it easily. There are briars and thorns, poison ivy, and vines that pinch and pull at my clothes and leave me irritated and frustrated because I cannot get to the place I want to be.
When we allow ourselves to follow our passions without control – that is to say, we try to grossly fulfill our animal desires - we end up in places that we thought would bring us more fruit, greater happiness, but only discover that we have become lost and entangled by our desires. This too can lead us to become weary, uncertain by the circumstances we face, and we must halt at each step we take or risk stumbling further into the destruction of happiness in our relationships and in our interior life.
We see this message in the story of the lamb who risked the comfort of the community to search out for greener grass elsewhere. And, having done so, becomes lost.
It is here, in the wilderness, that the prophet tells us to make a highway for the Lord - A highway in our soul. Cut down the underbrush and overgrowth of our passions to make a place for the Lord. For it is by faith, that we know that lasting comfort doesn’t exist within the circumstances of our life or allowing our passions to go wild but our hope of lasting comfort is found in our faith that the presence of God IS our ultimate source of happiness.
So, what is this highway? How best do we cut down the overgrowth? Law itself is the highway that directs us to our proper end. This highway begins with the natural law that is found in all of us – believer and unbeliever. It is our pursuit of greater life, goodness, and power (to serve). But then it is refined by divine law when we discover all of these longings are found completely in God. So, we progress to the old law, that is, the Ten Commandments given to us by Moses and the Israelites which lead us into right relationship with God and with others.
Reflecting on our communal experience, I believe we each had mountain-top moments when we thought “everything is right in the world.” All the circumstances were in our favor and we were comfortable. But then comes the valley, when the circumstances are not right in our world and we are not comfortable. Something happens and we are robbed of our joy. The prophet calls us to live out the Ten Commandments in order to smooth out those mountain and valley experiences of our life.
Now some may say, I am not in the desert and others may say I am not in the wilderness. Some of us might have the blessing of saying, “I’m on the right path.” But, who among us is not lost in some way? Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans, realized that the more he tried to do what was right, he fell back to delight in his animal appetite that lead us back into that underbrush of vice and eventually sin.
Even when we are doing 99% what God has reveal us to do, who can deny that 1% that is still lost within us.
It is here, that the gospel reading, shows us a better path. And not just a path, but a highway. For it describes God’s love for those of us who are in the desert, the wilderness, or in the ditch on the side of the path. Like a good shepherd, God seeks us out and brings us back to himself through Christ in each of our human experiences and conditions. And this is grace, that God would rescue us from the desert of despair or bewildering forest of our passions and led us back to where he resides. It is this grace, this power of the Holy Spirit poured out on us through Jesus found in the sacrament that enables us to escape that black forest of sin. This is the New Law.
God forgives us for our failings and our sins regardless of whether we are young, like a new blade of grass or an old, bent, and broken flower.
I have heard that forgiveness is when we no longer wish the other person to suffer for the evil they have done to us. But reconciliation begins when the bond of friendship has been restored and both parties seek to growth that friendship further through love.
God is faithful to the word he gave his prophet. Through Jesus, he has brought us the comfort of his forgiving presence found in the Sacrament and in our affirming response to his presence through acts of love and virtue.
The prophet tells us, and maybe we are blessed enough to experience this ourselves, that when we are reconciled to God, there is great joy. A joy so overwhelming that it is glorious and presses out all sorrow. We discover God’s presence and our loving response to him fulfills our interior longings and we are comforted despite our external circumstances.
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