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John the Baptist is a pivotal figure in the history of our salvation. He is presented each Advent as the "forerunner of the morning," the "voice that cries in the wilderness" to prepare a way for Christ. It's interesting that the prophet Malachi today says that this figure – the returning Elijah whom our tradition identifies with John the Baptist – will start us first on an inward journey, not a journey of activism.
In the energy of my youth, I was always ready to act when confronted with injustice. And that's a good thing. The oppression and injustice that I confronted served to stir my heart. But it also stirred something else: my ego. That's one of the problems with those of us who want to work for justice. We have a deep pool of anger – some of it righteous and pure, some of it sinful and contaminated by our own wounds and hurts. If we allow the purifying Spirit – the Spirit prefigured in Elijah/John – to enter our hearts, this Spirit will purify the "sons (and daughters) of Levi." We are these sons and daughters: the people charged with keeping the temple pure and undefiled. And what is the temple? Nothing less than God's dwelling place – our earth. It will be a difficult process. As we turn to God in prayer, and ask that through Jesus, the Spirit of God would purify our hearts, we will experience the Spirit not as a consolation, and not as a the gentle lover of our souls, but as the "fuller's lye" and the "refiner's fire." The process is sometimes painful, almost as if sin were being burned from our souls.
But if we are truly to be messengers of Christ, the sun of justice, we must be prepared.
- Fr. Aidan Rooney, CM, is a missionary priest in Bolivia and blogger (vocesvincentinas.org).
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