December 7, 2025 – Second Sunday of Advent ‘A’
Is. 11:1-10; Rom. 15:4-9; Matt. 3:1-12
HOMILY
The Book of Acts tells us the story of Paul who, finding a group of believers in Ephesus, asked them: ‘Have you received the Holy Spirit since you became believers?’ -- ‘No,’ they replied, ‘we have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ Then Paul asked them, ‘What baptism did you receive?’ -- ‘That of John the Baptist,’ they replied. Then Paul quoted to them the message given by John in today's Gospel: ‘I baptize you with water... But the one who comes after me... will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’
John was a seeker, a prophet with a keen eye, looking both behind and ahead. A prophet—even the prototype of the prophet. That is why he did not die in his bed but had his head cut off. The normal way for a prophet to die. He preached in the desert. He did not go to preach in the streets of the cities, as other prophets did. He was the spirit blowing in the desert. He compelled those who were drawn to his message to come to the desert, far from their occupations, their homes, their fields. He compelled them to find themselves, to consider their history, their lives, from the perspective of the desert.
At the heart of John's teaching is the message that God is coming. There is someone coming after John. ‘The one who comes after me’: this expression can have several meanings. The first meaning could well be that Jesus was for a time one of John's disciples. Indeed, ‘to come after someone’ in the language of the Bible means to be his disciple. But the expression that Jesus ‘comes’ is pregnant with several profound meanings. God is Emmanuel, God with us, present in our daily lives, in the daily lives of all human beings.
We can now read the first reading (from the Book of Isaiah) again and see in it the message that God wants a humanity without borders, without wars, without wolves and snakes, without violent men. He wants a humanity marked by harmony - harmony between women and men, between humans and their environment; a humanity marked by justice, without privileges, without oppressed poor people, without unjust judges; a humanity where nations will no longer be separated by the mountains and ravines of their religions, their political creeds, their theological or philosophical systems...
A utopia? Of course! Just like the call to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. A utopia to which it is worth devoting our entire lives. An ideal and a goal that we can only achieve in one way, through conversion. And that was what the Spirit of the desert, speaking through John, demanded of everyone. The radical conversion that the Pharisees and Sadducees were unable to achieve, we are no more capable of than they were. We need the baptism of fire: that is, the action of the Spirit, the burning wind of the desert, consuming all the impurities and defilements of our lives and hearts.
Isaiah's prophecy paints a picture where the little boy leads the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the calf and the lion cub together; where the cow and the bear will have the same pasture, the lion will eat with the ox; and where the infant will play on the cobra's nest. Yes! The movement of history is going in this direction. And yet the daily newspapers remind us that violence, the thirst for power and money are still present. So many daily crimes remind us that not everyone is yet filled with a spirit of love and peace... Are we?
The call to conversion that comes from the burning breath of the desert, through the mouth of John the Baptist, is a personal call addressed to each one of us.
May we hear it in a special way during this season of Advent.
Armand Veilleux