Today’s gospel is one that confronts our resolve to be committed to Christ.

Let us look at the scene: St. John the Baptist is a powerful preacher who calls his people to true repentance and then uses the means of baptisms for them to seal their new resolve. God will not be mocked. The pharisees come for show and The Baptist confronts their intentions. Notice what he calls them: brood of vipers. He calls them snakes and among the most poisonous of snakes nonetheless. It is no coincidence that the snake has such a powerful reputation as being the manifestation of the demonic. Jesus calls them children of the devil much later.

In the process, John announces that God will bring a radical change to His people. He will separate the wheat from the chaff and take control of what had been so lost. He is announcing that this powerful change is coming and it does. Forty years later, every aspect of the political entity that is the Jewish state will be wiped off the map, never to exist again until 1946 A.D. Further, the temple, the center of Jewish worship, will be destroyed and will not to this day be rebuilt. (the wailing wall in Jerusalem is the last part of the temple that still exists.)

God is revolutionary. He brings change when change is due. He calls us to be part of that change or be left out. (Not as violent revolutionaries, anyone who takes us arms or weapons to do God’s work, is indeed not doing God’s work.) The pharisees are left out while many of those they considered beneath them will be brought into the kingdom of God.

This is advent, the second week, and again the theme is one of repentance. This is a theme that asks us where our base is. Where do we put our hope? If we put our hope in the things of the world, we make the grave mistake of basing ourselves in gross instability. If, however, we put our hope in Christ then we will orient our lives to him and as Jesus teaches later, when the storms come, we will remain standing.

This is the time to look at where our foundation is at the present time. If you want a good look at what your foundation is then look at your worries, and your fears. They will tell you about your foundation. Jesus teaches at another time that fear is useless, what is needed is trust. What are you afraid of? What keeps you up at night? What do those fears tell you about what you most value? Do you bring your fears and worries to Christ? What answer do you expect?

The pharisees acted as if they were in love with God, but they were not. They followed the rules intensely, but these were just the rules. They let those things they valued most: money, status, political power, cloud their relationship with God. This led them to be self deceived. They did not know Him and thought they were holy. John is calling his people to repentance, to make God the center of their lives, to change our whole way of being.

Today, we invite people to make Jesus the whole center of our lives and to change our whole way of being. We need to trust in Him completely, but to do that we need to repent of those things that cloud our vision of seeing Him and to understand that the world offers us a stability that it does not have. Only Christ offers us a stability that He has to offer.

Look within yourself this week and seek what you treasure most, what is the foundation of your life. Then seek not only sins you need to eliminate from your life with the grace of Christ but also attitudes that lead you from Christ. Find your greatest worry and see how offering it up to Christ may not change the situation, but will be turned in to a tool that God uses to form you closer to Him.

This is the time to offer ourselves to Christ completely, as we look to when Christ did the same for us. At his Incarnation culminating with his Death to be celebrated in his resurrection.

God Bless You,

Father Robert J Carr

Fr. Carr is an alliance member of the New Song Community (Canção Nova). He is the pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Somerville, MA and is the editor of this blog. He is also the author of a blog directed specifically to priests. That can be found at thesacramentallife.blogspot.com

photo credit:

Top: Fr. Robert J Carr

Bottom: Hermano Leon