This document discusses the Advent season and the figure of John the Baptist who calls people to prepare for the coming of Jesus. It says John the Baptist's message from Isaiah was to prepare the way of the Lord by removing obstacles from one's life through changing direction, overcoming temptation like Jesus did in the desert, and conforming one's will to God's will moment by moment. Living this Word of Life means preparing for the Lord to enter one's life by straightening the paths of one's life.

1. Word of Life
December 2011

2. “Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths!” (Lc 3,4)

3. During this Advent
season, we are
invited to live a new
Word of Life. The
Evangelist Luke
takes it from the
book of Isaiah.

4. The first
Christians
attributed it to
John the
Baptist, who had
preceded Jesus.

5. The Church, in the period before Christmas,
presents us with the figure of John the Baptist,
who invites us to rejoice because he is a messenger
announcing the arrival of the king.

6. The time is
coming when
God will fulfill
his promises,
forgive sins and
grant salvation
to all.

7. “Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths!”

8. While this Word of Life is an expression of
joy, it is also an invitation to a complete and
radical change of direction in our life.

9. John the Baptist invites us to prepare the
way of the Lord – but what is the way?

10. Jesus’ coming was proclaimed by John the Baptist, but
before entering public life to begin his ministry Jesus
spent some time in the desert. That was his way.

11. In the desert he found profound union with God,
but he also encountered temptation, and by
overcoming that, he made himself one with all of
us. He came out victorious.

12. We see Jesus following this way too in his death
and resurrection. Since Jesus followed his way to
the end, he himself has become “the way” for us
who are still on the road.

13. He is the way we must follow in order to fulfill
our calling as human beings, and enter into full
communion with God.

14. Each of us is indeed called to prepare the way
of the Lord who wants to enter into our life;
and we must straighten the paths of our life so
that he can come in.

15. We have to prepare the way for him, removing all
obstacles one by one, obstacles such as those
arising from our limited way of seeing things,
from our weak will.

16. We need courage to choose between our way and
his way for us, between our will and his will,
between a program we have thought up (which may
or may not push through) and the one created by
his all-powerful love.

17. Once we have made that decision, we have to
work at conforming our own stubborn will to his.

18. How? Those who have become fulfilled
Christians, the saints, teach us a good,
practical, intelligent method: do it right now.

19. Moment by moment, let us try to remove the
obstacles that keep us from doing his will so that it
will no longer be our will living in us, but his will.

20. In this way we will have lived the Word of Life: “Prepare
the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”

21. “Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths!” (Lc 3,4)
Text by Chiara Lubich