A Miracle Has Begun

Dear Friend,

Along your Advent road, may peace and all good be yours!

In the Gospel from Luke this week we hear about John the Baptist preaching throughout “the whole region of the Jordan” and proclaiming a baptism of repentance”.  According to Luke, he embodies the words of Isaiah, his magnificent predecessor: “a voice of one crying out in the desert" of the salvation of God, which “all flesh shall see…”

How Luke tells this story became clearer to me when I came across a little nugget of wisdom in my reading this week.  Slightly abridged, it goes like this: “Our discipleship doesn’t produce miracles overnight, but when we look back, we realize that a miracle is in the process of taking place.”  

While John and Isaiah are pointing toward the future, Luke, the author of the Gospel, is looking back at the transformative drama which he witnessed in his own life. (The main actor in that drama was the Holy Spirit!).  The “miracle” of the coming of the messiah was changing him, and helping him see his past - and characters from his past - differently. With all he was holding in his heart, he (along with helpers and editors) had to write it down and thank God he did!  His two volume work - the Gospel and Acts of the Apostles - is a profound vision of hope.

My own life journey is shaped by encounters with men and women who have given me strength in hard times.  These encounters might not have made sense at the time, but looking back….ahhh yes.. I get it.  Part of Advent means looking back in gratitude.   As Paul writes to the Philippians, “a good work” - a miracle? - "has begun in us, and the one who began it will complete it." 

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor