December 11, 2025
Second Thursday of Advent
Fr. Renato Russo
Dearest ones, we find ourselves at the heart of the Advent Season and today the Church offers us these few verses from the Gospel of Matthew which seem to have the person of John the Baptist at their center.
Examining them more closely, we first notice that the one speaking is Jesus; and it is He Himself who explains to us who John the Baptist is, what the profound meaning of his story and his life is, from birth to death. (We are all used to and no longer pay attention to the birth of a child: so many are born and so many die… it belongs to nature to be born and to die. But in God’s eyes, no one comes into the world “by chance”; each person has been willed by Him, for himself and for others: this means that human life is a vocation… we should reflect on this more often!).
Now, why was John the Baptist willed, called into existence? At his birth, his father Zechariah prophesies (Lk 1:68ff) that this child will be a prophet of the Most High, because “he will go before the Lord to prepare His ways,” that is, he will be the Forerunner of the Messiah, of Jesus, as were all the ancient prophets, or rather, as Jesus says, “all the prophets and the Law prophesied up to John,” and John himself embodies the spirit of Elijah; indeed—as Jesus also says—he is that Elijah who is to come. With John the Baptist, therefore, the waiting is over, the time of the promise: now a new time begins, the time of the Kingdom of God, because God Himself, in Jesus, is in our midst.
Preparing for Christmas, then, means becoming aware of the absolute newness that Jesus is for every human being, for each one of us: He is God-with-us, Jesus is God who has visited us, who has come to this tiny grain lost in the universe which is the earth, who has drawn near to every person in the fragile humanity of a child! May He find space in your heart! Holy Christmas!
