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"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump or Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord."

Sunday Readings
The first reading is taken from the book of Isaiah 11:1-10. To help us prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas, the Church recalls the prophecies of the great Isaiah on each of the four Sundays of Advent. To encourage the Chosen People who were wavering in their loyalty to Yahweh their true God because of the bad example of their worldly leaders, the prophet reminds them of him who is to come.

The second reading is from the letter of Paul to the Romans 15:4-9. "Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction." St. Paul is referring to the inspired books of the Old Testament from which we learn of the existence of the true God, from whom all things came to be.

The Gospel is from Matthew 3:1-12. In this holy season of Advent, as we prepare to welcome Christ at Christmas, John the Baptist has words of advice and warning for each one of us. He advises us to "prepare the way of the Lord," by true repentance of our past sins and a firm resolution to straighten "the ways of the Lord," that is, not to deviate from the true Christian way of life in the future. Hopefully none of us deserves the reproaches he addressed to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but most of us perhaps can find traces of some predominant vices in our innermost selves. The pride and self-righteousness of the Pharisees ruined their otherwise good lives. The worldliness of the Sadducees made them lose interest in the future life, until they went so far as to deny any future existence after death. Of these two vices, that of the Sadducees is the more prevalent today and it is to be found in the best of us, in a greater or lesser degree. While all true Christians repudiate atheism, with its denial of the existence of God and of a future life, many become so immersed in the things of this world that they have no time or thought for the world that is to come. While theoretically they reject atheism, they themselves, like the "brood of vipers" of whom the Baptist spoke, are full of the poison of materialism, and are injecting this poison into those whom they influence.

A sincere examination of our outlook on life and death, and of our way of life up to today, will tell us how we stand in relation to Christ. Let each one of us ask himself: if Christ, for whose coming as the Divine Babe of Bethlehem we are preparing, were to come to us before Christmas as our just judge, how would we fare? Would we be gathered with the wheat into the granary, or be bundled with the chaff into the unquenchable fire? Each one of us has the decision in his own hands. We can, by true repentance, change ourselves from chaff into wheat, but once we draw our last breath, not even the infinitely merciful God can do that for us.

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