Last Thursday I was at the School Reconciliation Service at St Anne’s School in South Ham, Basingstoke. For those that don’t know the school it is a lovely little school, which puts Christ at the centre of everything it does. During the service we used an abridged version of the Gospel we use today, and Fr Paul Leonard asked the children some questions to help ensure they understood the message behind the Gospel. As a clergy team we were impressed by the quality of the answers.

In that Gospel we hear St John the Baptist cry out to us all ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ The children at St Anne’s were preparing by attending the Reconciliation Service, with the older children celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation with our Pastoral Area priests. I’ve said many times before, that we are called to have a childlike faith. With that in mind:

How are we preparing?

What are we doing to make His paths straight?

The first reading today, from Isaiah, gives us an image of what heaven will be like. It is a place where all of God’s creatures are safe. We struggle to visualise this; as in our human state we cannot imagine, for example allowing a child to play next to a snake. Our God given instinct would not allow us to trust the snake’s God given instinct. But Isaiah is telling us that heaven is different. In heaven we are different too. In heaven we become new creations.

St Paul tells us that what we read in Scriptures and the things we have been taught are so that we might have hope. If we could use one word to describe Advent, it is hope. Our hope is not just blind optimism, our hope is that we believe in the promises Jesus made to us that He will always be with us, and that He will come again.

I watched a video recently where a priest in the USA, Fr Joseph Krupp, described our journey to heaven as being like when we set off for a location we do not know and we need to use our Sat Nav. The Sat Nav to heaven is Holy Scriptures, our Catechism, the teachings of the Fathers of the Church etc. Now when I set off on a journey from home to a place I don’t know, I often believe that I know the local roads better than my Sat Nav, so I will use the short cuts. In the early days of Sat Navs, before I started using my mobile phone the display would pause and say ‘recalculating’ and the device would work out another route and calculate the distance and the new arrival time. On our journey to heaven, we often think that we know a better way, or we get distracted and go down the wrong path, this is when the Holy Spirit starts to recalculate how we get back on to the right road, because God wants us to reach heaven, He doesn’t want us to get lost. The thing here is, are we listening to the ‘recalculated route’ or are we so intent on doing our own thing, that we miss some wonderful opportunities? Fr Joseph said that the reason God doesn’t want any of us to be lost, is that God doesn’t see us the way we see ourselves when we look in the mirror. God sees us as the new creations He will make us into, when we reach our Eternal Home.

Advent, in a similar way to Lent, allows us to look at ourselves in the mirror and be honest with ourselves. There are things in our life that we are not proud of, we all make mistakes, we all take wrong turns. But these Church seasons give us an opportunity to reconnect with God, to allow us to listen for that small voice to say ‘recalculating’ and to follow the route back to our promised destination. Today, we need to ask ourselves are we taking the time we have been given to ‘recalculate’? Are we learning from our mistakes?

Where is God guiding me?

In all of our busyness`, the true reason for Advent is being drowned out by the sound of cash registers and Christmas music in the shops. Whilst celebrating this wonderful season is important, let’s not get carried away with the secular empty promises and let’s set our direction on making this is the best preparation time we’ve ever made.

Further Reading

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Second Sunday of Advent

CCC 522, 711-716, 722: the prophets and the expectation of the Messiah
CCC 523, 717-720: the mission of John the Baptist
CCC 1427-29: conversion of the baptised[1]

Please remember in your prayers

  • All those who are sick, either at home or in hospital, especially those who have very few or no visitors.
  • Those who have died and those who grieve for them.
  • All people affected by war and that international treaties for the protection of non-combatants and civilians are respected and adhered to.
  • All those attending the RCIA programmes
  • Those attending the Youth Alpha programme which is a prerequisite for the Confirmation programme in our Pastoral Area.
  • The success of the Pastoral Area Mission Plan.
  • Success of the last session of the Pastoral Area Course “Mary – A Biblical Walk with the Blessed Mother.”
  • The Pastoral Area Reconciliation Service on 19th December at St Joseph’s Basingstoke.

Deacon Tony

5th December 2025.

[1] Homiletic Directory, Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments