Preparing the Way Through Penance By Fr Gerrity on December 22, 2024
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Preparing the Way Through Penance: A Reflection on Saint John the Baptist During Advent

The Importance of a Straight Path

The words of Isaiah, the prophets declaring who Saint John the Baptist is should resonate very deeply with us. Certainly it's a meditation that and that we have a plenty in the many hours that we spend driving back and forth to our missions. Because what does it mean to make a road? If anyone ever wanted to travel between Sanford and Davie without a road, it would be messy, to say the least. Annoying Father Pieroni. We'd end up in a swamp somewhere. But the fact of the matter is, there's a reason we make highways. Yes, they're ugly there. Industrialists, and they're there. They occupy the country around us. But at the same time, they are extraordinarily convenient.

The Labor of Preparation

What does it take to actually make a highway? Well, judging by how slowly those projects go, it takes a whole lot of work. Of course, that could be just government employees. We never know. But the fact of the matter is, it takes an awful lot of effort to just simply prepare the path to lay down a road. Anyone who's ever worked on that, you know, getting their driveway ready for pouring concrete or being part of a construction crew to prepare a foundation, whatever it may be, the effort of trying to take the natural contours and bumps and everything of a land and to flatten them out and to make it solid enough to actually put a structure down for the for a road or a building or anything else knows that it is a complicated, difficult process.

Saint John the Baptist and Spiritual Preparation

So why do I bring it up? Well, of course it is. In relation to what Saint John the Baptist is talking about. He is the voice of the one crying to the desert, make strait the way of the Lord. It is for us to prepare the path for our Lord Jesus Christ to come in and to take ownership of everything around us, of this entire world, as the one true king. It is up for us most specifically to prepare the path for our Lord Jesus Christ, the King, to come in and take possession of our souls. The coming of Christmas, the coming of Christ is specific for the fact that we are supposed to receive Him in the most perfect possible sense. Our souls should be prepared to receive him.

The Role of Penance

The pathway should be smooth. His coming should be without tremendous difficulty. And so that means that we have to do the hard work of preparing the soil of our soul so that he can come in and take possession of it. And this means the Gospel of Saint John the Baptist, which is penance. This is a necessary element of the spiritual life, one that does not get discussed nearly enough, and one which is an ignored part of the modern world. Quite the contrary. The modern world does everything it possibly can to make everything too easy, so easy that we don't actually have to make any effort or labor at all for the purpose of being able to achieve anything.

Challenges of Modern Ease and the Need for Discipline

Somebody asked me not too long ago. Not from here. Why is it so difficult to teach children these days? Well, it's because we've made everything too intuitive and too easy. Children don't have to use their brains to actually think. To learn something. All you need is as a cell phone, and as a result, nobody memorizes anything. Nobody works for anything. Nobody retains anything. You have to actually labor. You actually have to pay attention. You actually have to force yourself to discipline yourself for the purpose of receiving any information. Not just receiving it, but assimilating it, memorizing it, and be able to use it eventually in your life.

Penitential Examples in Catholic Tradition

And that is the case with every aspect of our lives. The modern world wants to make everything so easy that we don't actually have to make any effort for it. Which means the whole spirit and concept of penance has disappeared. And that's what St John the Baptist is trying to give, is trying to reach out to us. We are supposed to do penance. We can't let Chris do all the work while we sit back lazily and let him do everything. We have to prepare the way we have to till the ground. We have to make our souls ready to receive him. We have to do the labor.

Penance as a Reflection of Love

And it's not easy work. It is not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be painful. It's supposed to be difficult. And it's not supposed to be comfortable. The spirit of comfort of the modern age has destroyed so much of the willpower that is supposed to be ours, which is supposed to be the thing that guides us and propels us into a life of virtue. Instead we lazily drift along. Let the world do everything so easily for us computers, A.I., whatever else. Not just technology, but just the very spirit of the world around us.

Christ's Call to Action

Saint John the Baptist is warning us that Christ is coming. And it is for us to put things right. If the king were to come to our house, we leave it in disarray, full of filth. Dirty clothes everywhere. Dirty dishes piled high? Of course not. We would want to actually clean the house and prepare it for his arrival. That's what the time of Advent is supposed to be. That's what the time of the Old Testament was. It was a time of preparation. And this final great prophet, this bridge between the Old Testament to the New Testament, Saint John the Baptist, lived that before he ever preached it.

Emulating Saint John the Baptist

At a very young age, 8 to 10 years old, he went into the deserts. He dressed in camel skin. I don't know if you've ever touched a camel. It's not very comfortable. They're very rough skin, very rough fur. He ate only locusts and honey. It's important that we have a spirit of penance. Not all of us are called to live like Saint John the Baptist.

Historical Examples of Penance

When they were preparing to canonize Saints Saint Paul of the Cross, the founder of the Passionist Order, they were examining the many tendencies that he did very publicly, because, of course, part of the process is you have to call into doubt why people did heroically virtuous things. So the devil's advocate was trying to claim that Saint Paul, the cross, was doing this out of vainglory to to to be admired by the people.

The Calling of Extraordinary Penance

And one of his followers, I was called as a witness, and he rolled up his sleeve and showed a deep and impressive scar running down his arm. And he was asked, Well, what is this scar supposed to mean? He said, when? When Paul of the Cross was scourging himself one day, I honestly thought he was going to kill himself. He was scourging himself so violently. And I actually got the chance to see the flagellum that he used, the scourge that he used, and it was just metal shards. And he this this man, this follower of Paul the Cross, thought that he was going to kill himself with his scourging.

Penitential Life and Inspiration

So he reached out to grab his arm to stop him. And just one of those little hooks dug into his flesh so that 50 years later, he still had to. He still had a deep scar. When questioned as to why. Paul That same. Paul The Cross would do such horrible things. It was because he was called by God to do so. He was called by God to remind people of the effort of penance that is necessary.

Modern Day Reflections on Penance

And since nobody else was actually standing up and doing so, he took all of it upon himself. He took all of that penance upon himself very much in the spirit and style of Saint John the Baptist. One of the reasons the Pharisees hated St John the Baptist Inherit and others was because of the fact that he was a reminder that the luxurious lifestyle of Herod was absolutely not in standing with what they were supposed to do, what the Jewish people are supposed to be doing. They were not supposed to be slaves of their own laws.

The Role of Sacrifice in Virtue

They were not supposed to be slaves to their own appetites. But then he was also a reminder to the Pharisees that they were not simply just supposed to practice the materialistic version of the law. The law, without the penance that is going to animate, be animated by the love of God, is empty. So he was there as a reminder, which is why they did not like him. And it is for us to remember this very same lesson.

True Sacrifice and Spiritual Growth

All of the virtues that we practice or we try to practice all of the efforts of going to mass and of making sure that we do everything we can for this little chapel and for our Lord and the bus, the sack and whatever else, if it is not maintained by the charitable spirit of true penance. And true sacrifice. It is empty and it is hollow, as is that of the Pharisees. That is the spirit of sacrifice we are supposed to have.

Embracing a Sacrificial Spirit

We are supposed to have one that is burning with the love that our Lord Jesus Christ himself is demonstrating by His incarnation. He doesn't have to come to us. He didn't have to take our form. He didn't have to do anything, which was so humiliating for him. But he wanted to because he wants to demonstrate his love for us. He wanted to come among us. And so what are we supposed to do?

Preparing Our Souls for Christ

We are supposed to prepare the way we are supposed to clear the rubble. We are supposed to lay flat the way we are supposed to knock down the mountains in our soul so that the path for him to come is as easy and as simple as possible, because we are the ones who caused the problems, and it is not for him to traverse the rough terrain of our soul. We must rather make everything as easy as possible for him to work in our soul and to actually bear fruits.

Call to Action for Spiritual Readiness

It is a difficult process. And so the spirit of penance is necessary and some chosen souls. That is their vocation. I had the blessing of being able to work with the men names a little bit in Mexico. That's what they're that's what their goal is. Perpetual adoration for priests and penance for the church. They sleep on planks. Their pillows are logs. They're vegetarians, which in Mexico is really tough.

Inspiration from Dedicated Lives

The common jokes that Father Puga loved to tell was the last blast. Menem, who died, was because of a pillow fight. They're admirable for a lot of different reasons, but it's not the life that anyone can live. It is something that is extraordinary. But that extraordinary spirit that of the Carmelites is shutting themselves off from the world, losing themselves entirely in their vocation, that of a missionary, having to go wherever they are commanded to actually bring the message of God to everybody, the people who live in a convent and sacrifice themselves, or St Paul of the cross in the public square, scourging himself before all the world, inviting others to a spirit of penance.

Embracing Simplicity in Penance

These are things that are supposed to inspire us. Not to follow in exactly the same steps. We don't have to sleep on logs. But maybe we could just have a little bit of more of a spirit of simple surrender. Being okay with the idea of being uncomfortable, of going 10 minutes without doing something that is self-serving or makes us feel better about ourselves.

Daily Penance in Simple Acts

Maybe going an extra half hour for for thirsty without a drink of water. Maybe getting up and doing a one hour vigil during the night for the burial of the spirit of director of Archbishop Lafave. That was his practice from 2 to 3 in the morning. Every day he would get up and spend one hour in prayer for priests. You don't have to do that much. He was a very a very holy man.

Offering Back to Christ

But something some little thing that robs you of just a little bit of the comfort that the world so desperately wants you to be a slave of. What is it we can give to the Christ Child in response to the amazing gift that He is giving us by his mere presence, by his example, and by his love? What can we give back? After we receive the bugs, a priest receives the sacrament after he receives the host.

Asking and Giving Back to the Divine

The next thing he does is when he uncovers the chalice, as he says the prayer. What can I give back for what I have received? Creator Tree one. What can I give back for what I have received? That should be the sum total of our spiritual life. God is giving and giving and demonstrating His love in every conceivable way. He is showing us through his life, through the life of the church, through the sacraments, through the sacrifice of the mass, and through every possible way.

Sacrifice and Love in Spiritual Life

He is showing us the immensity, the complex and absolutely infinite way of his love. So that we have no excuses not to love him back. And that is the very simple question that we should be asking him every single day. What can I give back for what I have received? For all that he has given me. What is the little thing today that I can offer up? This is the spirit of penance because it is inspired by the love of God.

Enkindling Love Through Penance

Saint John the Baptist was inspired to come in and prepare the way because he was enamored. He was enamored of God. And he was called to that same part of the cross, was willing to flagellate himself to within an inch of his life just to inspire others to the same love that he was filled with. The minions are supposed to be living that exact same life, but each and every one of us must also have the same spirit within us.

Individual Paths to Spiritual Growth

Maybe not the same extreme, maybe not to the same bloody final as John the Baptist or anyone else, but simply to do our duty with a spirit of sacrifice, to deny ourselves some of the creature comforts that the world desperately wants us to serve, and to let ourselves actually work out our salvation with our Lord Jesus Christ, as opposed to simply sitting back and being comfortable all the way into hell.

Conclusion: Love as Our Guiding Spirit

But it requires a spirit of true devotion to the love of God, a true appreciation of the spirit of love which gave us the incarnation and the crucifixion and the death and the resurrection and the Church. All of these things come from his love, so therefore that is what we must give back. Everything that we do must be given with absolute perfect love. Because that is going to be the spirit. That is the spirit of Christmas.

Committing to a New Beginning

That needs to be the spirit of Advent. So these last couple of days ask that question, what can I give back for what I have received? Really contemplate that and consecrate yourself to it starting now. Because when Christmas comes, the celebration begins. But that's also when the work starts. Because now we need to reform our souls into truly fertile soil so that the Word of God and his presence actually can bear fruit 100 times over. And we can be a part of his great work here on Earth for the Salvation of Souls.

Summary

Saint John the Baptist serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of preparing our souls for Christ, a theme especially relevant during Advent. This preparation is likened to the laborious task of road building, which requires significant effort and dedication. Similarly, preparing our spiritual path necessitates penance, a discipline undervalued in the modern world that often seeks comfort and ease over effort and sacrifice.

The text also discusses the exemplary lives of penance led by historical figures like Saint Paul of the Cross, who serve as inspirations for us to emulate, even if not to the same extreme. The modern tendency to avoid discomfort is critiqued, with a call to action for embracing small acts of sacrifice as a form of penance. The ultimate goal is to prepare a worthy place in our hearts for Christ, guided by a spirit of love and the recognition of his infinite gifts to us.