By Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB
The B.C. Catholic

This is an excerpt of a homily given Dec. 4 at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Surrey.

Realizing our need for repentance is not depressing – at least not if we can do something about it. When we recognize our failures, we can own up to our need for the Lord.

Acknowledging one’s sin is the beginning of new life. As men and women of faith, we believe that our desire for forgiveness will not go unanswered by the Lord Who shepherds us, carries us, and gather us into loving arms. God wants none of us to perish, but to enjoy abundant life in Him.

Responding to a call for repentance is a process. If our desire for forgiveness is to be sincere, we must still do some hard work. Conversion is a slow and difficult course.

Few of us want to review our comfortable – if imperfect – habits of a lifetime. Sure, we’re willing to admit that we’re not perfect and that we have faults, but we usually prefer to leave them vague so that we never have to do anything about them.

A general sense of sinfulness is not very helpful; it induces guilt without any remedy.

True followers of Jesus are willing to submit to honest confrontation with the specifics of their lives that need changing. And then they submit to the power of God’s mercy in the sacrament of reconciliation.

Going to confession, making a good confession, is the very best way to respond to the Baptist’s call to make straight the way of the Lord.

Saint John the Baptist pointing to Christ by Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1655).Besides calling for conversion, John the Baptist also points out with clarity the cause and source of our salvation. He looks forward to the One Who is “more powerful” and Who will baptize not just with water, but with the Holy Spirit.

That’s why in pictures and statues he is often portrayed with his finger pointing away from himself to the One Who was to come: Jesus Christ.

The Baptist reminds us that God comes! Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but even today, now!

The one true God, “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” is not a God Who is alone in His heaven, unconcerned with us and our history, but He is The-God-Who-Comes to His people.

He is the Lord Who wants to come, to dwell among us, to stay with us.

Why did He come? He is motivated by the desire born of love to free us from sin and death, from all that prevents our true happiness.

God comes to save us.

The Gospel says that Christ will baptize us with the Holy Spirit. He gives us a share in His divine life. Because of this baptism, which we have all received, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within each of us.

And so no one who comes to Christ and is washed in the waters of baptism walks the wild and rocky road of life alone. God is so much with us that, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, God is within us. No wonder that another name often given to the Holy Spirit is the Comforter.

The Prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist both tell us that the Lord is coming. Indeed, He is already here! Yet we must prepare to recognize, listen to, and receive Him.

Above all this means acknowledging His mercy and receiving the sacrament of reconciliation before Christmas.

Show your gratitude to the Lord that He has sent His Son among us to be with us and to give us His presence in the Holy Spirit.