Question of the Week: In the early Church, the Apostles taught that Jesus would come again and they must be ready! However, some wondered how long they had to wait. There was impatience in the community. What does the second reading from 2 Peter 3:18-33 say to those who were wondering about the “delay” they were experiencing concerning Christ’s Final Coming?
Coming in contact with the Divine
It is marvelous to consider God touching His people and His people being able to touch God. From Isaiah this weekend:
Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;
in his arms he gathers the lambs,
carrying them in his bosom,
and leading the ewes with care.
Isaiah sees God coming and describes how his way ought to be paved! Lower the mountains, fill the valleys, make a highway for our God! And while God comes with great power in this prophecy, God also comes to us like a gentle shepherd gathering his lambs in his arms and holding them close to his own bosom with care.
It is an awesome thing to consider — God holding us! Poetic language yes. Human language — yes. God’s word to us — YES! While human language conveys the care of God for us, using imagery we can understand, the reality of God loving us is far greater.
God who is Almighty stooped down to us. God became man in Jesus Christ. The prophecy of Isaiah was
fulfilled in John the Baptist who was the “voice” crying out in the desert, “Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight His paths.” John the Baptist conveyed the holiness of the “One mightier than I” who was
to come by saying “I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.”
If only we had John’s humility and sense of the sacred! John did not feel worthy to stoop and touch the
Messiah’s sandals, yet God stoops down to us!
How amazing to consider that we have contact with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in every Mass
and in every Sacrament. How amazing to consider that when we read and study Sacred Scripture, we
are meeting God Himself!!!
Dei Verbum, the document of the Second Vatican Council put it this way:
“For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks
with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and
energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting
source of spiritual life. Consequently these words are perfectly applicable to Sacred Scripture: “For the
word of God is living and active” (Heb. 4:12) and “it has power to build you up and give you your
heritage among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32; see 1 Thess. 2:13).”
Brothers and sisters, this Year is dedicated to studying the Sacred Scriptures. I pray this Advent that
God will instill in our hearts a hunger and longing for His Words, and the inner faith we all need to
know when we read Sacred Scriptures, we are like one of the sheep in the bosom of the Good Shepherd.