Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent
I recently finished a book called “Be Healed”. It’s written by Bob Schuchts, the founder of The John Paul II Center for Healing. Part of the book says that we need to let God heal the wounds of the past to receive healing in the present.
How might I heal these wounds? To answer the question, I spent some time praying with the beginning of the gospel of Mark:
John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River for the forgiveness of their sins. (Mk 1:4,5)
A beautiful image came to mind. It is a meditation you might want to try.
I first imagined the desert in which John the Baptist was preaching. People would come from all over to be baptized.
I then imagined that this desert was the desert of my interior life. The desert of my soul. The people that were coming to be baptized were not strangers, but people of my past. They were people that I had hurt or had hurt me, people I had people I had betrayed or betrayed me. They were all the people who let me down, criticized me, or made me feel small. They were the people I had sinned against, and who had sinned against me.
One by one they walked by me. When we made eye contact, I would feel the same emotions I felt when the wound originally occurred: pain, anger, resentment, shame.
My dad walked by me. He was a good man but sometimes didn’t provide the help I needed. From him, I learned to be independent – a virtue. Taken to the extreme, however, I learned that I can’t trust anyone. I need to do everything on my own. This lack of trust extends to my relationship with God. I don’t always trust God like I should – and that never works out well.
My mom walked by me. She was wearing a hospital gown. She had no hair. She died of cancer when I was eighteen. I felt the sadness of her death and regretted the things I could have done better, the same feelings I had almost fifty years ago.
My first boss walked by me. He was a horrible boss. He never had anything good to say about me, and criticized me harshly. He instilled in me the notion that I would never amount to anything in my career. It took years to climb out from under that lowly assessment. When our eyes met, the same feelings of resentment and anger bubbled up.
One by one, these people of my past would walk by me, and the wounds would come to the surface. Some of the wounds still affect how I respond to certain situations today. It is hard to begin anew when there are so many people in my past telling me how I should respond and how I should feel.
I watched them walk past me. They traveled to the bank of the river and disappeared in the flowing waters. When they emerged, they were wearing white gowns. They were the same people, but the wounds between us had been healed. They were still part of my past, but the ugliness had been cleansed.
It reminded me of the wounds of Jesus. The wounds were part of him even after the resurrection. Yet by his wounds, he brought healing to the world. These wounds of my past will always be with me. The difference is that in my vision, I allowed them to be cleansed and purified, and even glorified. Healed.
I heard the words of John the Baptist. “Prepare the way of the Lord. “One mightier than I is coming after me.”
The mighty one, however, cannot enter this interior place if I permit these wounds of my past to be mightier than He. My inner anger, for instance, provides a barrier for the Lord to enter. Preparing the way for the Lord means I need to make peace with these memories that are dictating how I think, feel, and respond to certain situations. It means I need to allow the Lord to show me how to think, feel, and respond instead.
John the Baptist says the mighty one will come to baptize this interior desert with the Holy Spirit. When that happens, the wounds of my past don’t disappear, but they lose their power over my present.
The gospel of Mark opens with the provocative line: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.” The beginning of the gospel starts in the desert. If you’re looking for a new beginning in the present, maybe you need to go into that desert of your past.