Embracing our life history and past choices that we may embrace salvation Christ has brought us

Friday in the Second Week of Advent

Is 48, 17-19; Mt 11, 16-19

When we see small children getting angry over some thing or other, often find it rather funny because they are getting worked up about very silly things. We notice that they fight over petty issues and we laugh because we think that were we in their shoes we would have acted differently.

Jesus presents us with exactly this example in today's Gospel to invite us to examine ourselves. His listeners blamed their reluctance to change on John the Baptist and on Jesus instead of admitting that they were the ones who needed to change.

Sometimes we do the same thing when we blame others for our reluctance to embrace salvation and to change. We use the famous phrase, "If only...!" If only I had a different upbringing, if only I have chosen a different life path, if only this or that. The truth is that these are the very things that make up our life, the gifts that God has given us and through them God works. It is no use rejecting them but rather seeing them as part of my life history as they really are.

Particularly in this Advent season, we are invited to reflect on how Jesus visits us in all these situations in our life so that we may finally change. But do we really accept them or not? Do we think that he is too challenging for us or not challenging enough? Do we think that he is asking too much of us or that he is asking nothing at all?

Today we are being called to embrace the figure of John the Baptist in our life and at the same time to embrace Jesus himself. It is not something that we can keep postponing. Even postponing it to Christmas is too late. It is something that we must do night now.

Listen to the First Reading: "If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river and your vindication like the waves of the sea." May we listen to God's commandments, to God's invitation to love, and may we as a result, be overflowing with God's love and grace so that others may benefit from them as well thanks to us.