Gospel Reflection for the Secone Sunday of Advent, Year B
By The Benedictine Community
Lord, let us see your kindness,
and grant us your salvation.(Psalm 84)
The immortal words of the prophet Isaiah ring out to us today, loud and clear:
A voice cries in the wilderness:
Prepare a way for the Lord,
make his paths straight.
These prophetic words, written six hundred before the birth of our Lord were finally being fulfilled when John the Baptist proclaimed them. And they have been proclaimed every year for the past two thousand years. The Lord, our Lord, Jesus Christ entered human history as a newborn babe in Bethlehem and began his mission of salvation and this is what we celebrate each Christmas.
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.
John Betjeman..