Advent is a call for conversion and penance

THE gospel of the 2nd Sunday of Advent, Year A, celebrated this year on December 4, presents us with these words of St. John the Baptist that have to be taken seriously: “REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 3,1) 

 Conversion and penance are actually what we have to do all the time. It’s quite clear that we need it, given our weakened, wounded and sinful condition in the entirety of our earthly sojourn. But it has its more intense moments, one of which is precisely the period of Advent. 

 The spirit of conversion and penance is not actually something that is dark, negative, painful, etc. It’s not something we should run away from. In fact, it’s not something that we should just bear and tolerate since we cannot avoid it. 

 We need to develop and live this spirit of continuing conversion and penance because it is clear that sin continues to dominate us in this life. In fact, it is quite clear that things are getting worse. There are now powerful and well-established structures of sin in our midst before which we are simply an easy prey. 

 The networks of corruption, pornography, godless and worldly ideologies, etc. are proliferating, taking advantage of the powerful technologies and the easy vulnerability of many people, especially the young ones, who are not yet prepared to properly handle these networks. 

 We know that the sense of sin itself is largely disappearing. Pope Francis and the previous Popes have pointed that out and are warning us of this condition. They are strongly encouraging us to truly develop the spirit of conversion and penance. 

 Advent is indeed a time to give special attention to our conscience, if only to clean, polish and fine-tune it, so it can more correctly and punctually hear the voice of God who is the only one to tell us what is truly right and wrong, moral and immoral, etc., in these very confusing times. 

 This spirit of continuing conversion and penance can only be developed if we truly have the love that comes from God. With this love, we will realize that there is no limit to our need for conversion and penance. Love will continue to make new demands on us, because life itself will also make new challenges and trials on us. Let’s never forget that our life will always be some kind of warfare. 

 With every conversion we make, we get closer to God, we grow in his divine wisdom and goodness. No doubt, we get to gain a lot more than what we seem to lose every time we make a conversion. 

 We should put our faith in this personal testimony of St. Paul: “Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.” (Phil 3,7-8) 

 The mark of true saints is precisely this hunger and thirst for repentance and conversion. Whatever good they did humbled them instead of leaving them proud. They knew who and what was behind all the accomplishments they made, and were more keenly aware of their inadequacies, their mistakes, faults, infidelities, etc. 

 It’s not that they led a miserable life of having a dark outlook in life and a negative attitude toward their own selves. They were a happy lot, whose joy sprang from their faithful union with God, their father, but also aware of their total dependence on God.

Let’s have the faith of the blind men

“AS Jesus passed from thence, there followed him two blind men crying out and saying, Have mercy on us, O Son of David.” (Mt 9,27) 

 This part of the gospel reminds us that we have to have a strong faith to get the attention and favor of God. We need to develop that kind of faith, which is first of all a gift from God but which we not only have to receive gratefully but also to cultivate, as best that we can, to its most mature state. 

 In this regard, we have to imitate the example of the two blind men who begged Christ for a cure of their blindness. Obviously, we have to first of all acknowledge our own blindness with respect to the spiritual and supernatural realities that govern our life. 

 Our main problem is that we often fail to acknowledge this fact of life, especially when we happen to be gifted with high intelligence and other talents. With such condition, we fail to realize that our intelligence and will, our talents and the other gifts God has endowed us, are actually meant to enable us to enter into the spiritual and supernatural world, and ultimately to God. We are actually poised for that purpose. 

 When we use our faculties to engage only with the natural things, we would actually be misusing them. That’s when we become very vulnerable to all kinds of anomalies and irregularities. We would have no ample defenses against the usual weaknesses and temptations we have in this world. 

 In fact, we can say that we are more blind the more gifted we are, because this latter status usually sheds some light that blinds us rather than clarifies things for us. It tends to take us away from God rather than lead us to him. 

 With respect, for example, to the knowledge we have accumulated so far through our study of things in this world, let’s hope that we can echo what was attributed to Socrates, i.e., that “the more I know, the more I realize that I know nothing.” These Socratic words somehow also find basis on some words of St. Paul who said: “The one who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” (1 Cor 8,2). 

 And that’s because a knowledge that is not guided or enlightened by faith is a knowledge that does not lead to charity. It leads to pride, vanity and arrogance instead. Again, St. Paul in this regard said: “Knowledge puffs up, but charity builds up.” (1 Cor 8,1) 

 If our worldly knowledge does not make our faith in God grow stronger, it would be a dangerous kind of knowledge. We have to correct and purify it immediately, giving it the right motive and purpose which is none other than to give glory to God. Otherwise, it would be knowledge that would simply be at the service of our self-indulgence. 

 And when that knowledge cannot cope anymore with the challenges of our life, that’s when we would enter into all kinds of anomalies and irregularities leading us to issues of mental health, depression, and all kinds of justifications to rationalize acts and positions that usually are considered by our common sense as perversions. 

 We need to pause from time to time to recover the proper bearing that would urge us to acknowledge our blindness despite our vast knowledge and to always beg with faith for the light that comes from God.

Doers of God’s will

“NOT everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 7,21) 

 It’s very clear that with these words of Christ we should do everything to live by God’s will and ways. Given the many distractions we have these days, we really need to exert the appropriate effort to be able to do just that. 

 In this regard, it is indeed advisable that we pause from time to time to check on how we are taking things in general, on how things are developing and on how our intentions are. We know quite well that things can change in the process. What may be good at the beginning can start to stray somewhere along the way. 

 Indeed, we may start by looking for God in the things that we do, giving him glory and conforming ourselves to his will and ways. But along the way, we can start giving in to our own desires, our own will and ways. From loving God, we can easily slide to loving self. We are very notorious in this tendency. 

 That’s why we really need to pause and check ourselves often. We have to see to it that we manage to keep our proper spiritual and supernatural bearing. In other words, we have to realize that whatever we do, whatever the situation is, we somehow would still be in contact with God. Somehow everything should be a form of prayer. 

 This will require of us to develop the skill of knowing what truly comes from God and what simply are a matter of self-indulgence. We need to be very discerning and discriminating in this regard. Not everything that presents itself before our mind comes from God. It can come from other sources—our weakened flesh or concupiscence, the world and the devil himself. 

 We should not be naïve and just accept things as they come. We need to check if the spirit behind anything that involves us comes from God or not. We cannot deny that there are many things that can look good but actually are dangerous to us. 

 In this, we have received enough warnings from Sacred Scripture. “Beloved,” St. John, for example, in his first letter tells us, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (4,1) 

 There are many kinds of spirits roaming around the world, and we have to learn how to discern them. There is the spirit of God, the spirit of Christ as opposed to the antichrist. There is also the evil spirit, and the spirit of the world that is dominated by the evil one. There is also the spirit of the flesh. 

 For this to take place, we certainly need a kind of plan or program to keep our spiritual life alive and vibrant even as we go through the drudgery of the routine things or the excitement of new and challenging things. 

 But we need to discipline ourselves to follow that plan, knowing that no matter how good that plan is, if we fail to deny ourselves and carry the cross, as Christ himself told us, (cfr. Mt 16,24) we cannot keep our proper spiritual and supernatural bearing, and thus become prone to a distraction that can lead us to our destruction!