John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.'

For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe in your, help me grow stronger in my faith. I hope in you, grant me a deeper desire to enter into your Kingdom and a firmer trust in your grace. I love you, deepen my love and make me more faithful to you in all things.

Petition: You called and prepared John the Baptist to be the voice which cries out in the desert. Grant me the grace of discovering what it is you want me to do to announce your Kingdom and make it come. When you come at Christmas, may you find me prepared, ready to receive you and ready to make you known.

1. Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Even now, at a distance of two thousand years, John's call echoes clearly. But there is one important condition in order truly to repent: we must admit we have sinned, we have to enter into whole new and different way of looking at the world and judging our actions. The people in John's time knew what sin was; as always, the normal, individual human person had a hard time recognizing his own sins (remember David when he had Uriah "accidentally" killed in battle) but they nevertheless had a horror for sin.

Today, we have a great challenge to overcome: "sin" is dismissed as a different word for a sense of disappointment for not living up to our personal standards, an emotional failure, an intellectual misunderstanding or an error whose root is psychological conditioning from childhood. In order to do what John the Baptist tells us, we have to recover a sense of who God is, who we are and who we are not.

God was the Father, the Faithful Husband of the Chosen People. He showered them with care from the time he chose them, he never abandoned them, he took them out of slavery, he sent them prophets... and we can continue on the list of benefits that God gave us in Christ: forgiveness of our sins, his own Body and Blood in the Eucharist; his truth, guidance and protection from error in the Church This is the God we sin, like a rebellious son or an unfaithful wife.

Once we let this sink in, we begin to acquire the dispositions that open our souls to the King who is coming. "It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but those who are ill. I came to call sinners"  Lord, I am a sinner, you came for me.
 
2. For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. John's words strike fear in us. There are different types of fear, and our repentance can be motivated by those different types of fear. We can be sorry we sinned because "he is an avenging God", capable of punishing "until the last penny has been paid." This is raw, servile fear. John's warning could be interpreted in this way, the King is coming and he will exact punishment from his unfaithful servants.
 
However, there is also another type of fear, fear when we think not so much of the damage that will be done to us as the benefits we will lose. The coming of God's Kingdom is the great opportunity, the opportunity for forgiveness, for healing from our sins. As Jesus told us, the opportunity to become children of God in him.  And to enter this is the new life he came to give us we need to shake off all servitude to sin. Penance is a cleansing, a preparation for a gift.

There is a third type of fear, fear of hurting the person who loves us. Even though Christ in affirming his Kingdom also draws a line separating it from the "other" kingdom, the reign of his Enemy, and he tells us that we must choose between one or the other ("if you are not with me you are against me") and this involves conflict, the essence of his Kingdom is love. He established his kingdom by dying in our place to redeem us from sin, and no-one has greater love than the one who lays down his life for his friends." His power over us is the power of his love and his goodness. And if we are of his Kingdom we will also lay down our life for our brothers and sisters.  

3. Produce fruits Christ's way is eminently practical. "A good tree bears good fruit; a bad tree gives bad fruit." If we have experienced God's loving forgiveness and he has made us new, there ought to be proof of it in our lives. It is not enough to "have Abraham as our father", no-one enters eternal life on the faith of another unless he accepts and lives that faith himself.

There is a very positive side to Christ's words here. It is not unusual to be unsure about where we stand with God, if we really are making progress, if what we have is real faith or just ideas, real love or simply feelings. Jesus tells us that our works will give us the answer. If our deeds are worthy of him, if my way of thinking, the decisions I make, the practical love I show my neighbor, my love for truth, the purity of my mind, my respect for others, consistently follow Christ's example then I am on the right path. I may have to improve, I definitely will have to persevere, temptation is bound to come and test me, but at least for now we are on the right path. If it weren't for God's grace we could not "bear fruits of repentance", and equally true is the fact that neither could we if we personally didn't correspond to that grace. 

Conversation with Christ. Lord, I want to prepare the way during this Advent in order to receive you when you come. Grant me a knowledge of the evil of sin, and sorrow for my own sin. Grant me love that will fear losing you, and fear letting your grace pass unheeded. Let me learn from your example how to live and show I am your disciple in my actions.   

Questionnaire:

1. What is my concept of sin? Am I truly aware I am a sinner? What sins from my past life can fill me more powerfully with an awareness of the depth of evil present within me and of my need for salvation through Christ's grace?

2. How much love is there in my fear of God?

3. What particular changes in my actions would show that I have truly turned my     life over to Christ?