Fixing the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Monday in Advent – December 02, 2024

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 8: 5-11

The commissioning of a journey consists in primarily declaring the destination of it – where to? That is what this pilgrimage begins with too. The Word today clarifies that we are on a journey towards the Reign of God. Jesus is on a journey, in the Gospel today, as he is most of the time pictured in the Gospels. His whole life was a journey, not only his. 

Our whole life is a journey too, a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage of hope towards the Reign, the salvific hope that is presented to every being created in the love of God. It is not about where we begin, from where we come, when we began and so on, that matter – but that we are determined to journey towards the Reign. For Jesus bursts the bubble of privilege, and sets the ground plain for everyone: many will come from east and west, to take their places at the feast of the Reign! 

Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord, the call is so clear and loud. Three important attributes of this call: to begin with, that we rejoice in that journey; secondly, that we journey together, forgetting our differences and disputes, leaving behind our scuffles and squabbles; and finally, that we walk in the light of the Lord. It is not about somehow reaching the destination, in fact in this case, we cannot! Because it is the Lord himself who will adjudicate. The choice we need to make right at the beginning of this journey, is to fix our minds, our hearts and our feet on the way of the Lord, that our journey leads us to the house of the Lord.