Homily for 2d Sunday of Advent

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Advent

Dec. 7, 2025
Matt 3: 1-12
Rom 15: 4-9
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

John the Baptist preaching
(Peter Brueghel the Elder)

“John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matt 3: 1).

For several weeks, our liturgical eyes have been on Christ’s 2d coming and the fulfillment of God’s kingdom.  Today our focus shifts to his 1st coming, his coming in historical time—while Tiberius Caesar ruled in Rome and Pontius Pilate governed Judea in Caesar’s name.

When I go hiking in Harriman State Park or the East Hudson Highlands, now and then the blazed trail may become hard to follow; or if I’ve gotten onto an unblazed trail, it may disappear entirely.  Then I have either to backtrack or refer to a map and compass to get my bearings and find my way to where I want to go.

Appalachian Trail blaze
on a boulder

Before Christ appeared in person in the time of Tiberius and Pilate with his word of salvation, a prophet appeared in the borderlands of Judea to prepare people for his coming, to reorient them to the path toward the kingdom of heaven, to help them find their way thru life’s wilderness.

This prophet was John the Baptist, a wild sort of man, strangely dressed, keeping a strange diet, and preaching a strange message:  the one for whom Israel has been waiting is coming soon.  He comes not for deliverance but for judgment.  Prepare for him by turning away from your sins, by finding your bearings back to God.

John presented the case for repentance more harshly than Jesus did when he appeared.  Not that Jesus ignored the possibility of hellfire.  But more generally, St. Paul recalls for us, “Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Rom 15:7), echoing the complaint of the scribes and Pharisees:  “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2).

A sinful woman kisses Jesus' feet
(Rubens)

St. Paul ties Christ’s welcome to our “welcoming one another” (Rom 15:7) and “to thinking in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus” (15:5).  In other words, Christ comes with salvation for those who receive him and follow him, those who imitate him in their love for their brothers and sisters—for all God’s children.  How all-encompassing that is, Paul tells us when he speaks of both the circumcised—the Jewish people—and the Gentiles being called by Christ to “glorify God for his mercy” (15:8-9).

That command to “welcome one another” and “think in harmony with one another,” the command to love one another in practice and not just in theory, is a call to conversion just as much as what John the Baptist preached when he demanded of his listeners that they “produce good fruit as evidence of repentance” (Matt 3:8).  If we’re truly sorry for our sins, we’ll try hard to act virtuously instead.  That’s how we prepare the way for God’s mighty one, our Savior, to come and “gather his wheat into his barn” (3:12), to lead us into the kingdom of heaven.