Be Kind, Be safe, Be respectful, Be responsible, Be resilient, Be ready

Dear Parents

What a blessing freeways are if you have to travel by car and time is of great importance. Before we get to travel on a freeway, a lot of work has been done. For months, even years, people and machinery push and shove earth to fill in gullies, cut through hills, tunnel through mountains, to take out corners and curves, to make the road flat, straight, and smooth.

2000 years ago, John the Baptist echoed the words of the prophet Isaiah, when he preached: “Get the road ready for the Lord, make a straight path for Him to travel. Every valley must be filled up, every hill and mountain levelled off. The winding roads must be made straight and the rough plains made smooth.” Luke 3:4,5.

John isn't talking about making a freeway; he is talking about a freeway where all obstacles have been removed for the coming of Christ in our lives. He is urging us to smooth the rough places in our lives- greed, selfishness, unkindness, thoughtlessness?-fill in the hollows- anger, judgmental attitudes, untruthfulness- make low the mountains and hills- spiritual laziness, materialism, exclusion of God?- that would prevent us from welcoming Jesus into our lives.

The Season of Advent, which is upon us, is a season of preparation, a time for attending to the disrepair of our freeway to Christ that has occurred over the past year.

Advent is preparation time for the coming of Christ at Christmas, when we are invited to accept Christ, not only into our world but into our personal lives. Journeying with Christ is a lifelong journey that leads to joy and peace; like the freeway, we might have to make changes to our lives before we get started.

Sometimes, change can be difficult due to past hurts and failures, which can hinder it. To be a change agent, we have to learn to let go of the past, for our life is to lead now, and “the future” quickly becomes ‘the now'. It seems that humanity is forever saddled with change, and the quality of our life, particularly our spiritual life, depends on how well we can prepare ourselves so that change can be possible and of benefit to our lives.

It’s possible that complacency can allow us to move through life comfortably with the quality of life and the fact that “we don’t hurt anyone”. We appear to be doing the right thing. But, when we look at Jesus, whom we are preparing to welcome, are we as good as we think?

Advent offers us an opportunity to have a good look at how we are journeying: what's the state of repair of our freeway? In what direction is it headed? Is it simply stretching off into the distance, or is it going somewhere significant that indicates true purpose in life?

Keep smiling

Cathy

Graduation and Farewell Mass Invitation