We are in the 2nd Sunday of Advent. On the road to Christmas and to a joyful encounter with Jesus, we are helped by great persons. We begin through the Virgin Mary, the auroroa who announced the arrival of the Sun. And we see after the prophet Isaiah, who there in the distance of biblical times foresaw with admirable clarity the Messianic times. And still St. Paul, who is the sublime theologian who “contemplates the greatness of Christ”. And in a particularl way, St. John the Baptist, the last of the prophets and the first of the evangelists. He prepared the people, there on shores of the Jordon, to receive Christ in the beginning of his public life. And they come to help us in the arrival of Christmas.

John the Baptist is an eminently austere prophet. In his way of dressing – clothes made of camels hair, a leather belt – and feeds on – locusts and wild honey – in his life and in his preaching. Of him Isaiah spoke when he said: “A voice crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the ways of the Lord.’ ”

His voice resounds roughly and strongly, crying out to sinners for conversion. And under the weight of his words, the sinners come to John and hear his hard threats, overall to those among his hearers who were pharisees and Sadducees. The sinners received the baptism that he administered in the waters of the Jordan, as a prelude to the future baptism of Christianity: “I baptize you with water, to move you to repentance, but he who comes after me is much stronger than I…He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.” And there were innumerable conversions.

We also should hear him. We should not be shocked by the vehemence of his preaching. Each style has its own epoch. And each man his own stile. Today also we have preachers who imitate some mode of the roughness of the preaching of the Baptist. They are missionaries filled with zeal and they cause a great impression among the listeners, and break the hardness of many hearts. Over all through the testimony of life that accompanies their lives, they are instruments of God to make one feel the gravity of sin and the danger of condemnation for those that walk sleeping in the life  of sin, trusting – who knows? – in their privileges as Christians.

John prepared the way  for Jesus. He is  His precursor. It will be marvelous that in the popular devotion to St. John the Baptist – so folkloric – this element may not be missing. Knowing that he brings us to Christ. He is not the destination! He is the way. He brings us to Christ through his words, his example, through sincere desire to bring all the flee sin and seek salvation.

This same Isaiah who defines with words so happy the person of John the Baptist – the voice crying out in the desert – speak to us of Christ with words so more marvelous, that we can encounter each step in the liturgy. In Isaiah, we encounter a true profile of Christ, whenever filled with the presence of  the Holy Spirit: He is “stem from the root of Jesse – this is a descendant of David –, over Him is poured the Spirit of the Lord! The spirit of wisdom and of discernment, The spirit of council and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and of piety, and he will be filled with the fear of the Lord!” We note this enumeration, adopted from the  Vulgate text – that unfolding the fear of the Lord in fear of the Lord and piety – corresponds to our list of the “seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which appear in the ritual  of the Sacrament of Confirmation.

The Spirt that converts touches the heart of all the people in order that they may abandon their errors and vices, and may return to Jesus for a sincere conversion.

Father Bantu Mendonça

Fr. Bantu serves in Angola

translated from Portuguese