3rd Sunday of Advent What must I do? How often we ask this question when we want to improve out lives! If we want to lose weight, be healthier, improve our marriage, be a better parent, we ask advice. Most of us are often considering ways to improve out lives. And this is what the people who came to John the Baptist – that strange ascetic prophet preaching in the desert – wanted. But they didn’t just want to improve their lives, they wanted improve their relationship with God. They wanted to be saved. In going out to John, they probably expected to be given a hard and difficult regime of conversion, pray for hours, remember God at all times, be ascetical, fast, make life difficult for yourselves. The advice they got was very different. John told them that when they had more than enough, they should give the excess to those in need. He told the tax-collectors and soldiers to be honest in their work. In short, he advised the people to be caring and to be content. Often when we ‘do’ religion, we can become rapt up in ourselves, worrying about how well we are doing our religious practices and sometimes very critical of what other people are doing. John’s advice bypasses these dangers. He tells us to consider others and as we consider them and their situation to be kind and honest. In other words, we are to be like God towards other people.
Sr Kym Harris OSB |