By Fr Antony Christy, SDB.
THE WORD IN ADVENT – Second week Tuesday
December 12, 2023 – Isaiah 40: 1-11; Matthew 18: 12-14
How do we prepare the Reign? By learning to speak, by learning to speak to the hearts, by learning to speak as the Lord wants. Console my people, speak to their hearts, says the Lord in the Word today. That is what it means to prepare the Reign. Preparing the Reign is preparing the ground and those who are around. How else can we do it, but by SPEAKING the right thing, at the right time and in the right manner?
We reflected on learning to see, yesterday. And it is not enough to see, it is important to make the others see what we see – how can we do it? By speaking to them. Consoling, speaking to the heart, directing, seeking, finding, guiding, leading – these are the imageries that are given in the Word today. All of them amount to that one learning that the Lord wishes from us – that we learn to speak.
That we learn to speak – what the Lord wants to speak. When we speak, we need to speak the good news, what the Lord wants to say, life-giving words, words that build up, words that infuse life and hope. That is learning to speak. When we speak such words of hope and strength, we prepare the Reign in the hearts of people, in the situations we live in and in the communities we form part of.
That we learn to speak – how the Lord wants us to speak. That we speak in a consoling manner, that we speak in a way that people will be led to God, in a way that will bring back the straying not send a few more astray, in a way that will make things straight, in a manner that will facilitate union and love, in a way that will create a situation of seeing and praising God for what God has done to us and keeps doing to us. That is the presence of the Reign.
That we learn to speak the Lord, that we proclaim the Lord incessantly – not merely by our words but by our whole selves and our very lives. Shout, Cry, Announce, and Proclaim – “here is your God” says the first reading. We are called to speak God, whisper God, proclaim God, announce God, share God to the world. The natural prerequisite is that we should possess God! Speaking not from the emptiness, but from the fullness, from the heart that is full of God.
Let us learn to speak, speak what the Lord wants to speak and in the way the Lord wants us to speak. Above all, let us speak God to all, that way we shall be every day, in every way, preparing the Reign.
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He has completed his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him on.