News - November 2022 RSS Feed

Call stories have common themes as well as unique ones. At the burning bush, Moses complained that he was not good with words. In a temple vision, the prophet Isaiah agonized over being a man with unclean lips. Jeremiah the prophet lamented: “I am but a child.” At their fishing trade, the first disciples, Andrew among them, heard the call to follow Jesus. They would turn from harvesting fish among the waters to harvesting souls from the world. There is no dialogue recorded in this call story. There is only action. They cast off their nets “at once” for an apprenticeship with a wandering preacher.

Isaiah is the Church’s favorite Advent prophet. He was insistent, even in the dire circumstances of God’s People during the time in which he wrote, that they must look faithfully to a future full of hope. He promised that “On that day,” God would do a new thing, making all creation secure in knowledge of Him, filling it with his presence and his peace. Isaiah’s poetry is admittedly beautiful and profoundly moving - but is this kind of hope any more than wishful thinking?

Once again, we’ve made it through another liturgical year to the beautiful season of Advent. Advent is the season in which we prepare to celebrate the first coming of Christ into the world on Christmas. But Advent is also a time in which we look forward to the coming of Christ again, as he promised, when the world as we know it will pass away and Christ will come to judge the living and the dead.

The season of Advent invites us to hope, to expectation and to patient waiting! The majestic words of Isaiah in the first scripture for today speak of something we would all like to see: a world at peace!! We would hope to see missiles, tanks, and all weapons of war and violence turned into plowshares and prune hooks to feed and shelter all those who have been injured and dispossessed by war and violence, some of whom wait at our own borders for a better life. We would hope to know that our children can go to school in joy and not be traumatized or killed by mentally deranged shooters or abused by predators. We would hope to see a peaceful political and religious climate in our country, characterized by civil understanding of different points of view instead of mob violence and threats against election officials. We would hope for greater progress in combating a pandemic that has robbed us of life and security.