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Reflection by Fr Daniel Szewc OMI;
What a roller coaster we have in the Gospel for this Sunday. St Luke takes us first to centers of political and religious influence: palaces and offices of the emperor, his governors and tetrarchs as well as the houses of high priests and Jerusalem temple where they exercised their ministry. However, the Word of God has taken us there so that we could pass through the chambers, halls and stairways of these magnificent buildings to continue to where God has decided to reveal himself, in the wilderness. There, we find a strangely dressed prophet John, the only son of an old priest Zachariah, who opens his mouth to announce the life-giving good news that fills his soul. He says: Prepare a way for the Lord.
On this Eighth of December 2025 John’s calling has reached us through love, faith, hope and persistence of generations of Christians who remembered and treasured the Scriptures better than pages of printed Bibles. This Sunday we hear this message coming from John’s heart and from the hearts of the multitude of believers who have taken to heart what John had felt compelled to preach: Prepare a way for the Lord.
During this time of Advent, the Holy Spirit who inspired John the Baptist speaks to you. So, listen to what the Spirt is saying to you: Prepare a way for the Lord because the Lord desires to come through the way you travel every day. Don’t go to a distant country to work on a way of the Lord. The Lord desires to traverse your way.
Make the Lord’s paths straight, not because he made them zigzagging but because your paths are. Still, the Lord wishes to travel them. For him make your paths straight. Be honest with yourself and admit what are the unnecessary bypasses you have introduced to your life, the bypasses which make you waste your precious time. Is it YouTube, Netfix, shopping spree? When you commit yourself to this work of making the Lord’s paths straight in your life you will see miracles coming your way.
You will see that every valley in your life will be filled in, every mountain and hill in your life be laid low.
Do you look for experiences to feel high? It is time to let them go. Look for the Lord who can motivate you. This motivation can help you to appreciate your straight way. Do you dwell on your low moments? It is time to let them go too. The Lord’s love and mercy call you to your straight way. I don’t know if this way is in the middle between the highs you dream about and the lows that imprison you. But what I know is that this Advent is the time of grace God has given you so that you can find him on your bumpy roads. If the Scriptures promises you that they will be made smooth it is because the Lord himself will frequent your roads so often, that his feet, once nailed to the cross, will smooth them out.
What a roller coaster our ways can be, still the promise is that the Lord will not fall out, he will be with us. After all he has promised to ‘be with us always until the end to time.’ The end of time is yet to come but the Lord has already come so with him Prepare a way for him.
