Second Sunday of Advent: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths”

Movement is all around us. The ground beneath us is shifting. The movement of “listening, welcoming and receiving” that forms the threads of the fabric of “His Way is our Way” is the same movement that calls each one of us into the journey of Advent. Recognizing that structures are for mission, the 2018-2024 Programmatic Letter creatively develops and richly strengthens structures of synodality, collaboration and networking like never before!

The Letter also subtly issues an invitation to each one of us and our various entities to urgently “prepare the way for the Lord”. Yet, perhaps at no other time in history are we so acutely and painfully aware that in this movement we no longer have the luxury of reading the signs of the times. The signs of the times must read us! Climate change, overturning environmental protections, migrants and refugees, human trafficking, the rise of white nationalism, women in the church and in the world are the signs of today. Where is our Dehonian presence and voice in all of this? It can no longer be business as usual. Heeding the prophets of old and now those crying in the wilderness today, the Greta Thunbergs, we too are called to join with them and be “prophets of love and servants of reconciliation of people and the world” (Cst 7). We need to be clear, what destroys the earth, destroys wounded humanity. We must stand for life, life ever more abundantly for all, from the womb to the tomb.

Imagine how the presence and voices of two-thousand Dehonians could make a difference! The mercy and love of God made known to us in the Sacred Heart of Jesus urges us to work in solidarity with others to “prepare the way of the Lord”.