Monday in the first week of Advent

In the days to come

the mountain of the Temple of the Lord

shall tower above the mountains

and be lifted higher than the hills.

All the nations will stream to it,

peoples without number will come to it;

and they will say:

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the Temple of the God of Jacob

that he may teach us his ways

so that we may walk in his paths;

since the Law will go out from Zion,

and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem’.
[Isaiah]

This prophecy will be fulfilled completely at the end of history, but its accomplishment has already dawned in the era of the Church. Peoples without number have come to the new Jerusalem, to the source of the counsels and oracles of God, and have been received as citizens of the new realm of grace. Men and women of every tongue, tribe and nation have come to the mountain of the Lord and to his Temple as learners and seekers of God’s path of wisdom. This wisdom is not that of the world--the findings of sociology and philosophy, of the sciences and humane disciplines-but the wisdom of grace and the new relationships that already constitute the Kingdom.

The miracle of the Kingdom is already being wrought on earth--the miracle of conversion, of which the Church itself is the great evidence. Once we were no people, but now we are God's people--sojourners and pilgrims in the way of divine Wisdom.

The First Sunday in Advent

Take your wrong-doing out of my sight.

Cease to do evil.

Learn to do good,

search for justice,

help the oppressed,

be just to the orphan,

plead for the widow.

‘Come now, let us talk this over, says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson,

they shall be like wool.’

[Isaiah]

The blessing of Advent is always this: a recalling of the pilgrim People of God back to first things, to repentance, and justice, and to the promise of the Kingdom to come. There are no guarantees that any of our efforts will succeed, nor any promise that we will feel blessed in the doing of them. There is only the command that we are to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, and fulfill all other obligations of our royal priesthood. Such is the sterner content of the Good News, and of this new life into which we have been summoned by God: priestly service in the world, the sacrifice of life for the sake of the Kingdom