Repent!

Ave Maria! The call to repent rings loudly and clearly in today's Gospel (Matthew 3:1-12). And in case I don't get it, St. Augustine explains it well in one of his sermons on repentance (see below). Now is the time for faith, he says, now is the hour of mercy. Now! Not tomorrow when perhaps I shall feel like it -- and what if I don't? -- but NOW! Now is the acceptable time, of God's favor, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). The Kingdom of God is at hand!

And it is I who must repent. This isn't about my brother or sister with the speck of sawdust in his or her eye that is infinitesimally smaller than the wooden beam in my own (Matthew 7:3). Nor this person who always ignores me or that person who forever puts me down. They are not my concern when it comes to repentance. That is between them and God. This call is for ME. I. MUST. REPENT. NOW. As best as I can, I must lay the axe to the root of my own trees, the biggest one being my ego. And I must humbly submit to the relentless but loving hackings of the Master Wood Cutter, who alone can finally clear the jungle of my heart and soul. Only then, by the grace and mercy of the Divine Messiah, shall a shoot sprout from the stump of my nothingness and a bud blossom for the praise of His glory (Isaiah 1:1).

Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

The gospel tells us that some people were rebuked by the Lord because, clever as they were at reading the face of the sky, they could not recognize the time for faith when the kingdom of heaven was at hand.

It was the Jews who received this reprimand, but it has also come down to us.

The Lord Jesus began his preaching of the gospel with the admonition: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. His forerunner, John the Baptist, began his in the same way: Repent, he said, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Today, for those who will not repent at the approach of the kingdom of heaven, the reproof of the Lord Jesus is the same. As he points out himself, You cannot expect to
see the kingdom of heaven coming. The kingdom of heaven, he says elsewhere, is
within you.

Each of us would be wise therefore to take to heart the advice of his teacher, and not waste this present time.

It is now that our Savior offers us his mercy; now, while he still spares the human race. Understand that it is in hope of our conversion that he spares us, for he desires no one’s damnation.

As for when the end of the world will be, that is God’s concern. Now is the time for faith.

Whether any of us here present will see the end of the world I know not; very likely none of us will. Even so, the time is very near for each of us, for we are mortal. There are hazards all around us.

We should be in less danger from them were we made of glass. What is more fragile than a vessel of glass? And yet it can be kept safe and last indefinitely.

Of course it is exposed to accidents, but it is not liable to old age and the suffering it brings.

We therefore are the more frail and infirm. In our weakness we are haunted by fears
of all the calamities that regularly befall the human race, and if no such calamity overtakes us, still, time marches on.

We may evade the blows of fortune, but shall we evade death? We may escape perils from without but shall we escape what comes from within us? Now, suddenly, we may be attacked by any malady.

And if we are spared? Even so, old age comes at last, and nothing will delay it.

~St. Augustine, Sermon 109, 1: PL 38, 636

Dear Jesus, living in Mary, love and mercy are Your treasure. May they be mine, too, as I answer Your call to repent now.

Dear Mary, Virgin of Advent, pray for me to become all that Your Divine Child is calling me to be.

Amen.