Gospel: Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was king of Galilee, his brother Philip king of the regions of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias king of Abilene, during the time of high priests Anas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. And he went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, preaching a baptism of conversion for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah: Voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight; every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Fruit: Reflect with God on how I will prepare myself for Christmas.

Guidelines for reflection
Advent means “coming.” We must ask ourselves: who is coming?: Christ, the Son of God, and for what purpose? The fundamental answer is: for our salvation. Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came to save us from sin and restore our friendship with God. What does “save” mean? To save means to deliver from radical, definitive evil. Such evil is not even death. The radical evil is sin.

1. At a very specific time.
In the first lines of this Gospel, we find several historical details about the Roman Empire, Judea, Galilee, and surrounding regions. The Holy Spirit, through the evangelist, wants to convey a very simple idea: the birth of Christ took place at a specific time and place. In a year—according to scholars, 5 or 6 BC—and in a specific location, the mystery of mysteries occurred, the entrance of God, infinite and eternal, into our concrete, palpable, tangible world. God has wanted to draw so close to us, His creatures, that He has become one like us, of flesh and bone, similar in all respects except in sin. As the Second Vatican Council reminds us in the constitution Gaudium et Spes: “The Son of God, through His incarnation, has united Himself, in a certain way, with every man. He worked with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted with a human will, loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He truly became one of us, similar in all respects to us, except in sin” (n. 22).

2. Listening to the voice
This is the great event we will relive at Christmas. It is so profound that the Church gives us four weeks to prepare. Every important event is prepared in advance, all its details are carefully thought out, songs and celebrations are rehearsed… We must do the same during these four weeks of Advent: prepare for Christmas, especially prepare ourselves for Christmas. To do this, let us listen to Saint John the Baptist, the first “preparer” of Christ’s coming. Just before Jesus began His public life, John started his preaching. Perhaps our hearts are like a desert, like the place where John preached; a desert where the “water” of the desire to live shines by its absence, a dry desert of charity towards those around us, a parched desert due to the lack of meaning in our lives. It doesn’t matter; what matters is that we prepare ourselves for the Lord’s coming by listening to the voice “of the one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord.”

3. Heeding the voice
It is not enough just to listen, to know that God is returning to our concrete, daily life. It is not enough to listen passively to the new John the Baptists, the priests, during Sunday Mass. We must take a step further: obey His voice: “Fill the valleys, level the hills.” Or in simpler terms: fill the valleys that isolate you from your neighbors, lower the mountains that make you forget those who live beside you. Let us dedicate a few minutes today to answer some questions: How will I prepare for this Christmas? We are at the threshold of a great event, so great that when it happened for the first time, it divided history into two—before Christ and after Christ. What will I do to better prepare my soul for the event of events? What will I give to the Child God when He is born in my heart this Christmas Eve?

Purpose: I will spend a few minutes dialoguing with God in prayer, offering Him the gift I will give in my heart this Christmas.