Heralding the Desert by Fran Salone-Pelletier

Readings: Baruch 5:1-9; Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6

Learn to value the things that really matter. It takes a lifetime to meet this challenge. It involves a lifelong process of succeeding and failing, trying and erring, starting and restarting.

To value what really matters demands a change of place. That’s right, we have to change our place as well as our pace. We need to stand up and look around. We need a different perspective, a closer look at the view from inside out. Today’s readings provide an alternate viewpoint from within the desert.

I have often read the words from Isaiah, repeated in today’s gospel: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” (Luke 3:4). Each time I read or heard these words, my concentration was on John the Baptizer. As a result, I thought about the responsibilities of being a herald and the absence of privileges that apparently came with the job. I thought about the ultimate end—better yet, the ultimate beginning—found in the inevitable martyrdom of heralds. Alternately, I was disturbed and exhilarated by those thoughts. Feelings of guilt and fear surfaced. I felt a call to be herald while, at the same time, shrinking from the burden of the vocation.

Perhaps because I have never been physically present there, I never really saw or heard the word desert attached to the commission. Yet the herald’s voice was said to be heard in the desert. Now there is a change of place and pace like none other!

Deserts are dry, arid places of shifting sands. In a desert, one has to be very careful not to become lost. Thirst quickly overwhelms the traveler. Parched throats ache and dehydrated bodies beg for release in cool, clear water. But there is more. There is a clarity to the dry air. Voices carry farther than one might expect, and a whisper can be heard as clearly as a shout. In the monumental boldness of undulating sand dunes, there are few distractions. What remains is the imperative to continue on the journey.

In his book The Desert in the City, Carlo Carretto writes:

The word “desert” is much more than a geographical expression that suggests to our minds a derelict, parched and arid expanse of land with no one in its. The word “reset”—for the man who lets himself [sic] to be taken up by the Spirit who animates God’s word—expresses the search for God in silence. The desert is the place where we gather courage, where we pronounce words of truth, remembering that God is truth. The desert is the place where we purify ourselves and prepare ourselves to act as if touched by the burning coal that was placed by the angel on the lips of the Prophet.

There are desert times in all our lives. There are times when we feel spiritually desiccated, devoid of joy, drained of sorrow. We thirst for something. Often we do not know what that something might be. Onward we trek, knowing only that going backward is futile. The experience is difficult and painful but it is also powerful. There is a certain sharpening of the senses.

Advent is a time to walk in the desert—to find what really matters. In the dimness of our desert walk, we are able to hear more acutely, see more distinctly, feel more empathetically. The herald’s cry becomes our own: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” The depths of depression, despair, frustration, and fear in our lives can be filled with hope, trust, love, and faith. Every problem and challenge can be transformed by our belief. Believing, we can now make ready the way of the Lord. Trusting, we can carry on.

With this new and renewing perspective, we find help in our struggle with life’s mysteries. Our value systems are called into question. Offspring who have strayed from the family fold may now seek return. Young adults meet in the arms of grandparents who have difficulty understanding what has happened to their family.

Slowly, slowly, we encourage each other to value the things that really matter. Together we learn to distinguish and prioritize what is right in God’s eyes from what is correct in our view. My presence in your daily joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, and your presence in mine will help us both to recognize and prize what is truly important. Arm in arm, we stand together in the desert before the Lord who loves our efforts more than our successes. From the heights of new awareness, from the mounts of our prayerfulness, horizons melt into pregnant possibilities. “Look . . . and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them” (Bar 5:5).

Desert times are dry, but not lifeless. They are draining but they do not destroy. Hope can prevail. Our very being bursts with the understanding that “the Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced” (Ps 126:3). God is in charge. God has already begun all the good work that is in us. God will carry it and us through to completion. God will never stop teaching us. With God’s grace we will never stop learning to be Advent people who value the things that really matter. ♦

Fran Salone-Pelletier holds a master’s degree in theology. She is the author of a trilogy of scriptural meditations, Awakening to God: The Sunday Readings in Our Lives, in which a version of this reflection originally appeared. She is also a religious educator, retreat leader, lecturer, and grandmother of four. Reach her at hope5@atmc.net.

Image: Saint John the Baptist Preaching, attributed to Pier Francesco Mola, 1612–66.