The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Last week we saw the disciples of St. John the Baptist asking Christ who He was, and this week we now see men asking St. John the Baptist who he is.

Notwithstanding what we heard Christ say of St. John in last week's Gospel: that he is "more than a prophet", let us consider what St. John says of himself in today's Gospel.

After denying that he is Christ, or Elias, or the prophet, He says of himself that he is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, `Make straight the way of the Lord' as says the prophet Isaias. At the time when John commenced to preach and to baptize, the belief (based on the prophesies) was general among the Israelite people that the promised Messias had either already made his appearance, or that his advent was near.

This mission of St. John was the same that the Catholic Church has been given. The Church is that voice crying in the wilderness. She has cried out all over the world in the greatest cities and in the smallest villages and even today in the world wide internet. But, her cry falls mostly upon deaf ears. There is a hollowness and emptiness in the world today due to the lack of divine grace and supernatural life which causes the cry of the Church to echo in the void.

The Church cries out not about the Redeemer yet to come, but of the Redeemer Who has come and given us the direction and means to follow after Him. She preaches of the mercy and goodness of Jesus which is available now; and she warns of the justice and judgment to come when He returns.

She cries out but the world refuses to take her seriously. The world does not wish to see the humble Christ as their god. It is too humiliating to have as our God one who was born in a stable, suffered upon a cross like a criminal, and offers Himself upon our altars under the appearance of bread and wine.

She cries out to the world to do penance and make straight the way of the Lord. But, again and again the world refuses to do penance. The world refuses to even acknowledge that they have done anything wrong and are in need of penance. The evils that they do they attempt to justify and declare that they are not evils but are virtues instead. Or they deem them unavoidable things due to the weakness of our human nature as if to say God is to blame for He made us this way. All manner of sexual perversity is today blamed upon God. How often have we not heard that "God made me this way."? How often do they use fallen nature as their justification? They tell us to look at certain instances in the animal kingdom where the same thing takes place and wish for us to accept this as justification for their sinful lives. God made us the head of His creation to correct and save fallen creation, not to follow and imitate it. The adulterer, the fornicator, the sodomizer, the glutton, the avaricious, the liar, the thief, the murderer, abortionist, etc all make excuses. And the cries of the Church fall upon deaf ears.

There have now even arisen false churches that will cater to each of these sins and still claim to be followers of God and of Christ. In this hellacious cacophony of sins and vices the Church is truly a voice crying in the wilderness. She is outnumbered, and her voice is all but drowned out in the loud screaming of demonic sin and vice. Yet, she cries out consistently in season and out of season, "make straight the way of the Lord."

This season of Advent we celebrate the anticipation of the world for the coming of the Redeemer, but we also are reminded of the need for Christ to come to us even today as Our Redeemer. We can only find Him in the Church and Sacraments that He has established. Let us go to the Church and hear her cries and act upon them. Let us make straight the way of the Lord. Let us renounce the ways of the world and sin and vice.

Let us turn with all our hearts minds and souls to Christ in the crib, on the cross and upon the altar. And filled with the love for God let us renounce the evils of our past, the temptations of our passions, the world, and the devils. Then the way will be straight for our Lord to enter in. And the voice of the Church will not have sounded in our ears in vain. Our souls will no longer be a desert or wilderness but will be the living temples of God.

When we have listened to this voice crying in the wilderness and cleared our souls of all that prevents our Lord from entering in then He will come and we can do as St. Paul says in today's epistle: "Rejoice in the Lord always."

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