Dec 15 Sun
How can I make straight the way of the Lord?
We must be emptied of ourselves and all personal problems, for Christ to fill our hearts.
Jesus Christ is the joy and happiness of all who look forward to his coming. Let us call upon him and say: Come, Lord, and do not delay! As we proceed through this time of Advent, our longings and hopes intensify. The Lord will come without delay. He will bring to light what darkness hides, and he will reveal himself to all the nations.
John, the Precursor, cries out: “Make straight the way of the Lord." And his message never grows old. There are still many souls who do not know Christ, and our own lives are still not sufficiently identified with his. We have not yet fully become like Christ.
John the Baptist invites us to make Christ our very life. Then there will be no room for personal problems, nor for sterile thoughts that only waste time and reduce the effectiveness of our dedication.
“Almost all those with personal problems, have them because of selfishly thinking about themselves. What we have to do is to give ourselves to others, to serve others for the love of God: that's the way to make our sorrows disappear. Most of our difficulties stem from forgetting about the service we owe to others and from dwelling on our ego."
We must be emptied of ourselves to make room in our hearts for Christ. Once he becomes our one and only Lord, there will be nothing that can upset us. His interests will be ours. We will desire to give God greater glory and to serve the Church and all souls better. The key to it all, the basis of our security, is our filial obedience to the Will of God. That is what makes the path straight and cheerful; and it is a path we travel along in peace and happiness, as God's children.
As St. Josemaría told us: “The conclusion I come to every day at the examination of conscience is always: Pauper, servus, et humilis! A poor and humble servant! That is, when I don't have to say instead: Lord, Josemaría is not very happy with Josemaría. But since humility is truth, it also happens that very often I have to add, as no doubt you do too: Lord, today I haven't thought about myself at all! I've been thinking only about you, and for your sake, I've been concerned only about working for others! Then our contemplative soul exclaims with the Apostle: it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
Making straight the way of Christ: using all the means the Church offers us.
Personal problems disappear when they cease to be exclusively our own. The sure way of recovering interior peace is to open our hearts in spiritual direction, talking about everything that troubles us, and humbly following the advice we are given. Useless worries, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and things that are hard to understand and upset us, will all vanish as soon as we speak up. It's as if a new day has dawned.
Joy, the theme of today's liturgy, should always be present in our lives. Cheerfulness is a Norm for always, a result of our divine filiation. It is the natural outcome of the fact that we do not have personal problems but instead concentrate on being more and more faithful.
Video: