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December 9, 2018“A voice of one crying out in the desert:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.’” (Lk 3:4)
In the words of Origen:
“What shall we prepare for the Lord? A way by land? Could the Word of God travel such a road? Is it not rather a way within ourselves that we have to prepare for the Lord? Is it not a straight and level highway in our hearts that we are to make ready? Surely this is the way by which the Word of God enters, a way that exists in the spaciousness of the human body. That human heart is vast, broad and capacious, if only it is pure…
Therefore, let a way be prepared in it for the Lord, a straight highway along which the Word and Wisdom of God may advance. Prepare a way for the Lord by living a good life and guard that way by good works. Let the Word of God move in you unhindered and give you a knowledge of his coming and of his mysteries.”
What labor there is in making way! How hard it is to break down the mountain of pride in my life, to crush it to gravel, which can begin to fill in those deep gullies of fear and self-doubt. Where there are mountains, there are also valleys, and vice versa. I realize that this is a never-ending process, because I am continually stumbling up my own self-made mountains and spraining an ankle in my own precipitous valleys. In fact, it is the Word who is the more sure-footed of the two of us – “Like a gazelle or a young stag upon the rugged mountains” (Sg 2:17). He it is who knows my mountains and valleys better than I do. He has been traversing them all these years of my life. But wouldn’t it be nice if I stopped putting obstacles in his path and the way was clear, open, empty? To become spacious, “vast, broad and capacious” is my goal. No amount of labor is too much to ask.
