Word of Life

December 2005

God’s forgiveness frees us so that God can fill us with himself. It is an experience that transforms.

Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight… a highway for our God! (Is 40:3)

Isaiah’s cry of hope was heard by the people of Israel who had been in exile in Babylon in Mesopotamia for 50 years. At last the Lord was sending one of his messengers to announce that they would be free to return to their homeland. Just as had happened when they were slaves in Egypt, God would put himself once again at the head of his people and lead them back to the Promised Land. The roads needed to be repaired, the potholes filled, the obstructions removed, in the same way as when a king travelled to one of his territories.

Five centuries later, on the banks of the Jordan, John the Baptist took up again the Prophet Isaiah’s joyful cry, this time to announce the coming of the Messiah himself.

Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight… a highway for our God!

Every year, as we draw closer to Christmas, we hear this same invitation. God, who in every age has shown his burning desire to be with his children, now comes to ‘live among us’. (John 1: 14) Today too he stands at the door and knocks because he wants to come in and ‘eat’ with us. (see Rev 3: 20)

We ourselves often long to meet him, to have him as our companion on life’s journey, and to be filled with his light. For him to enter our lives, we first need to remove the obstacles in his path. It is no longer a matter of clearing the roads, but of opening our hearts to him.

Jesus himself identified some of the barriers that close our hearts: ‘theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride…’ (Mark 7: 21-22) At times these barriers may be put up by grudges against our relatives or friends, prejudice against people of other races, indifference to the needs of our neighbours, or a lack of attentiveness and love in our families.

Faced with so many obstacles that impede our encounter with God, once again we hear the invitation:

Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight… a highway for our God!

How can we do something practical to prepare the way of the Lord?

By asking his forgiveness each time we realise we have put up a barrier that obstructs our communion with him.

With this sincere act of humility and truth, we stand before God as we are, acknowledging our fragility, our mistakes and our sins.

With this act of trust, we recognize his fatherly love, which is ‘merciful…and abounding in steadfast love’. (Ps 103: 8)

With this act we tell God we want to improve and to begin again.

Perhaps during the evening, or before going to sleep, is the time best suited to stop and take stock of the day just gone by, and ask his forgiveness.

We can also be more aware and heartfelt in our expression of contrition when we pray for forgiveness as a community. This may be at the Eucharist or during other moments of worship together.

Then individual confession or reconciliation, the sacrament of God’s forgiveness, can also be of enormous help. It is an encounter with the Lord when we can hand over to him all the mistakes we have made. We leave confession assured of our salvation and experience the joy that comes from the certainty that we are children of God.

It is God himself who, through his forgiveness, removes every obstacle, who ‘makes straight the highway’ and establishes once more a bond of love with each one of us.

Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight… a highway for our God!

This is what Louise experienced. She had a tragic life, with the wrong sort of friends, with drugs and an immoral lifestyle. She struggled to break with it all and managed to overcome her addiction… but it was already too late. After a hasty civil marriage, she began to recognize the first symptoms of AIDS. At that point her husband left her.

Louise found herself alone, carrying the burden of all her mistakes. Then one day she met a group of Christians who were living the Word of Life and sharing their experiences. She discovered a whole new world. Soon she came to know God as a Father and as Love. She could no longer hold on to her sins and believed in his forgiveness. Her life took a completely new turn. Forgiveness gave her a joy she had never experienced before, even though she was ill and suffering. Her face shone with a beauty that even the progress of the disease could not disfigure. The doctors were surprised that she was so peaceful.

She was experiencing a new birth.

The day she died, she was dressed in white, as she had asked to be. The road had been cleared for her to reach heaven, for her encounter with the Lord.

Chiara Lubich