To awaken from our sleep, to be prepared, to throw off the works of darkness and to put on an armor of light: we heard these messages at Mass on the first Sunday of Advent. Jesus called us to have hope as we prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord during this holy season. On this 2nd Sunday of Advent, we hear from John the Baptist, the last of the great prophets of Ancient Israel. John isn’t preaching in the Temple in Jerusalem or in Israel’s great centers of learning. Instead, he comes to us out of the desert. John is a strange figure wearing clothing made of camel’s hair and eating odd foods such as locusts and wild honey. If John the Baptist wandered into our church today, we would be shocked at his presence and his message. As John prepares the way of Lord, his message helps us prepare our hearts for the coming of our Savior.
As we could sum up the message of the 1st Sunday of Advent in the word “hope,” we could summarize today’s message in another important Advent word: “repent.” Our English word “repent” comes from the wonderful Greek word “metanoia,” but our English translation of that word really doesn’t capture the full meaning of the original Greek. We could start by seeing repentance as a change in our minds and our hearts, but repentance is much more than that one action. Repentance demands an initial action, but John the Baptist saw the call to repent as something more. In metanoia and repentance, we turn away from our old ways and our old self, turning toward God instead. By repenting, we transform our minds, our attitude, our spirituality: our entire being. In our modern American view of Christianity, we often see repentance as turning away from a particular sin. But, in repentance, we are called to turn our entire life away from all that separates us from God.
We might need to open ourselves to a new interpretation of repentance and to be open to those experiences that God introduces into our lives in order for us to discern where God is calling us to be transformed. We might want to think about a time in our lives when we went through a process of repentance and transformation. As we enter the Advent season, I think of how at this time of the year back in 1992, I left my job as a CPA to work at a soup kitchen and a food bank in a rough inner city area of the city of Winnipeg, Canada – a place that was very, very cold most of the year. I went from working in the business world to serving a very desperate population on the fringe of society. As a missionary, I was called to live a very simple lifestyle similar to those whom we served. Yet, as I look back, I see that entire experience in Winnipeg as a missionary as a wonderful gift from God, a gift that transformed my life in so many ways. I was so affected by the relationships that I made there, by living amongst the poor and the street people, by sharing their pain and struggles. I would not have the compassion, the deep faith, and spirit of social justice I have today without having had those experiences. To be honest, I probably would not be a priest today at all without having served in Winnipeg as a lay missionary. At times, it was very raw and challenging working in an inner city soup kitchen. I had to endure things I never dreamed I could endure, including riding a bike all year round in the one of the coldest cities in North America, with ice and snow covering the ground many months out of the year. I remember riding to midnight mass on Christmas eve in Winnipeg when the actual temperature was minus forty below zero, not including the wind chill factor. On another occasion, I remember lying on the ground in the middle of the street after my bike hit some black ice on my way back from the soup kitchen late on a Sunday night. I knew I was hurt, as I got up and walked over a mile back home with my damaged bike. The next morning, I experienced excruciating pain. I was taken into the emergency room as my hip had popped out of its socket when I wiped out on the ice. I literally saw black and blue and just about passed out when the emergency room doctor popped my hip back into the socket. But, looking back, those challenges and these stories that I now can tell were small struggles and inconveniences compared to the blessings and the transformation I had from those missionary experiences. Yet, I had to be open to metanoia in my life of faith. I had to be open to God’s ability to transform me, mold me, and help me change my ways according to his will.
I remember a seminary friend of mine asking me if I felt that I would have a metanoia experience as a priest, if I would find a transforming spirituality in my life as a diocesan priest since we were not going to be guided by a particular spirituality that a Franciscan or a Jesuit or a religious order priest would have guiding and shaping his life. Indeed, that is the challenge all of us have as Christians, as followers of Christ. We all are called to be open to metanoia, repentance, and transformation this Advent season. The coming of Jesus into the world as a little baby in a manger in Bethlehem, the salvation that his ministry, death and resurrection brought to humanity transformed everything. How open are we to transformation this Advent season?
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