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Fr. Leo Pabayo .

ADVENT is about waiting and preparing for the coming of the Savior. Every Advent season we are invited by the Church to focus our attention on this for it means that the Savior is coming to bring us “tidings of great joy.” But recently (This was written in Dec. 21, 2014) much of our attention was drawn by the threat of the super typhoon “Ruby” making landfall on most of the Visayas and part of Luzon. Instead of thinking about the waiting and preparing for the coming of the Savior we found ourselves in anxious waiting and preparing for the coming of “Ruby.”

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The waiting that we did with regards to “Ruby” was however was not unrelated to the kind of waiting and preparing that we do in the season of Advent. If we give it a good thought we will realize that there is much relevance and similarity between the kind of waiting and preparing for the coming of Our Lord during Advent and the kind of waiting and preparing we are asked to do in anticipation of the typhoon Ruby and the other disturbances that threaten us.

The waiting and preparing that engrossed us as typhoon Ruby approached accentuated all the more the meaning of Advent. How?

Advent is about the waiting and preparing for our salvation in Jesus Christ. Much of the meaning of that salvation has also to do with being saved from the calamities and disasters that come into our life reminding us that we are still waiting for the day when we are totally saved from our sinfulness which can ultimately be traced back  to the our  lack of harmony or getting along with the laws of nature. We need badly the saving power of the Savior to have this harmony with nature.

The Savior has in truth already come. But it is also true that in a sense he is still coming and not yet here because there are still areas in our life that we have not allowed him to save us from. Some of these are the perennial disasters that unexpectedly hit us because we have not learned to be prepared for them, to avoid them or eliminate them by the grace of God and our active cooperation with that grace.

This is true not only our natural environment, but also and in fact more so in our political, business, technological, etc. environment. Our problem with our natural environment is in fact largely due to the kind of environment in the world of politics, business, technology, etc. that we have created.

In other words our problem with our environment, both natural and man made is ultimately caused by a lack in our spiritual life. This lack is what Jesus Christ has come to fill up. We recall his coming again at Advent and in Christmas in the hope what is still lacking may already be filled up.

As John the Baptist announced in the words of the prophet Isaiah the prophet:

“A voice of one calling in the desert,

`Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.

Every valley shall be filled in,

every mountain and hill made low.

The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.

And all mankind will see God’s salvation.” (Luke 3:4-6)

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