According to Your Word - Second Sunday of Advent

(Image of the Advent wreath is from ImageVine/courtesy of www.imagevine.com. All rights reserved.)

Cycle B
(Is 40:1-5, 9-11; II Pt 3:8-14; Mk 1:1-8)

“One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down to loosen his sandal straps. I have baptized you with water, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John's ministry was one not only of preaching but also of waiting for the coming of the promised one.

Waiting is perhaps the most widespread of all human experiences. Waiting is an art unto itself. More often than not, we discover that what we were waiting for was not worth the wait. Or at least, that it wasn't what we had hoped for nor expected. A prolonged experience of waiting tends to show us we are not patient. The kind of waiting Advent asks of us as Christians is neither for impatience nor for cynicism. The basic thrust of Advent is waiting for something already experienced as present and powerful to be completed. It is waiting for someone who is always and already coming toward us in greeting and welcome.

Advent rekindles in us that sense of watching and waiting wherein we see and identify the constant breaking in of Jesus into our lives. The world around us will rush while Christians find themselves wrapped in a deep spirit of hope that is restored.

Christ has come among us; Christ is among us; Christ will come again in a glory to be recognized only by those who keep watch in the growing darkness and cold.


– Fr. Edward Sabo, T.O.R.