The celebration of Christmas is fast approaching, and the Church provides us with this special season of Advent to help us prepare for the Coming of the Lord. What is that Coming? We know about the First Coming when Mary gave birth to Jesus, and we celebrate that event with our own decorations and hymns and prayers. Another answer to the question is to think about how we will meet the Lord, enjoy the Day of the Lord, and experience the Second Coming of Christ. Our hearts have a longing for that Day, that Second Coming, but we need patience as we wait in joyful hope for it.

 The next question that we have to ask ourselves is how to prepare for the Coming of the Lord. Most of us have some traditions about preparing for a Christmas celebration. If we think about it, we actually spend much of our daily lives preparing for something or other, perhaps to meet someone or to work or even to play. So we can appreciate the blessing of the Advent Season, which helps us prepare for the Lord’s Coming.

 On the First Sunday of Advent we heard the Scripture readings reminding us to be alert and prayerful for the arrival of Jesus. The joyful hope of this season also reminds us to live with confidence that the Lord will not fail us, even if we do not have a clear grasp of what our minds and hearts desire. The Scripture readings for this Second Sunday of Advent are especially an invitation to prepare. John the Baptist’s message in the Gospel is very clear and forceful: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.”

 The first reading, too, from the prophet Isaiah, tells the people to prepare the way of the Lord. When you think about what Isaiah says, it is amazing: “Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low.” We have never seen such fantastic events take place. This describes something far more wonderful than a change in the landscape or even the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem that is suggested in the prophecy. Isaiah continues: “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.” This is a marvelous vision beyond the ordinary limits of everyday life. John the Baptist, too, says something beyond the ordinary: “One mightier than I is coming after me…he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

 These prophets teach us that we are not just preparing for a remembrance of that wonderful event of the birth of Jesus in his First Coming. There is a Second Coming of Jesus, the Christ, far more glorious and yet unexpected in its day and hour. When the Church urges us to prepare, it is not saying we should decorate a crib or a tree. We are called to prepare our hearts for that Day of the Lord which is described in today’s second reading, from the Second Letter of Peter: “You should be living holy and saintly lives while you wait and long for the Day of God to come.”

 This Second Coming of the Lord is the great joy and mystery of this holy season. Perhaps we need to do some preparations for the holiday season, but our deepest preparations are for the Coming of the Lord, whose Second Coming will bring “the new heavens and new earth” that saves his holy people.

Homily of Fr. David Wessels, SJ