Can we be Today's John The Baptist

 

In recent weeks our world news and discussions have focused on the aftermath of the elections one month ago and the  subsequent political fallout that at best can hardly be called our "finest hour." In addition, the incessant news cycles and talking heads comingled with the noise of Christmas advertisements, reminds us that all is not calm, all is not bright. 

Father Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest writes of another turbulent time in history from a Nazi prison camp, shortly before he was hanged in 1945: 

"May the Advent figure of John, the relentless envoy and prophet in God’s name, be no stranger in our wilderness of ruins. (Luke 3:10-18) For how could we know unless someone cries out above the tumult and destruction and delusion? Not for an hour can life dispense with these John the Baptist characters These are original individuals, struck by the urgency of their  mission and vocation. They cry for blessing and salvation. They summon us to the opportunity of warding off - by the greater power of the converted heart - the shifting desert that will pounce upon us and bury us. 

The horror of these times would be unendurable unless we kept being cheered and upright again by the promises spoken. If we want to be alive we  must believe in the golden seed of God that the angels have scattered and still offers to open hearts. So many need their courage strengthened; so many are in despair and in need of consolation; there is so much harshness that needs a gentle hand and an illuminating word, so much loneliness crying out for a word of release, so much loss and pain in search of inner meaning. 

God’s messengers know of the blessing that the Lord has cast like a seed into these hours of history. Understanding this world in the light of Advent means to endure in faith, waiting for the fertility of the silent earth, the abundance of the coming harvest. Not because we put our trust in the earth, but because we have heard God’s message and have met one of God’s announcing angels ourselves. 

“The Blessed Woman… is the most comforting of all the Advent figures. That God became a mother’s son; that there could be a woman walking the earth whose womb was consecrated to be the holy temple and tabernacle of God – that is actually earth’s perfection and the fulfillment of its expectations. So many kinds of Advent consolation stream from the mysterious figure of the Blessed Expectant Mary. The woman has conceived the child, sheltered it beneath her heart, and given birth to the Son. Advent is the promise denoting the new order of things, of life, of our existence. Advent comes in these three figures. This is not meant as an idyllic miniature painting, but as a challenge. 

 Let us ask for faith in the motherly consecration of life as shown in the figure of the Blessed Woman of Nazareth. Let us be patient and wait, wait with Advent readiness for the moment when it pleases God to appear in our night too, as the fruit and mystery of this time. And let us ask for the opening and willingness to hear God’s warning messengers and to conquer life’s wilderness through repentant hearts. (Watch for the Light, The Shaking Reality of Advent,”pp.90-91)"

Can we become today’s John The Baptists

Our Time in the Desert

Adversity can play a key role in honing our ability to hear what is beyond the usual scope of our ordinary consciousness. No doubt for many of us the Covid 19 pandemic that began in the winter of 2020 and endures through 2024, forced us to face stressful challenges that were outside the “norm” of our usual experience. I wonder how this time and the early days of confinement and isolation heightened our awareness of events that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. 

Many people seek so-called desert “experiences” by way of solitary retreats during which forced confinement might help provide clarity and enlightenment that otherwise might be overlooked or taken for granted in “ordinary times” during which we are surrounded by our family, friends and our "usual routine."

Unlike John-the-Baptist in Luke 3:1-6 , we don’t always get a chance to choose our desert times and places. They are often provided for us in the form of illness, social unrest, war, changes in employment, failures in relationships, death of loved ones and natural disasters. These deserts all hold new possibilities for hearing the word of God at ever deepening levels. 

Speaking personally, it’s not too soon for me to assess how forced confinement has been a transformational experience. Perhaps it’s still too easy for me to dwell on the things I missed or have been taken away. It’s not a matter of addition or subtraction or replacing what no longer is with something else. What no longer exists still does in one aspect of my being and may be a springboard to new ways of living and personal growth. One thing we all know up close and personal:  life can turn on a dime and that the present is only as certain as our last breath. It’s all we can count on in this dimension.