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Thank you very much, O God for all the beautiful memories we have in the past, especially those moments you have blessed us with the good life - freedom and security, food and clothings, family and friends, and everything that is good in between them.
But the problem with our beautiful and sweet memories of the past is how often we are fixated to them, especially when hard times happen to us, like with your people Israel who were exiled to Babylon for so long: they could not believe their days are ending when you would set them free and allow them to come home that they kept on harking back to the good old days of the past, unable to look forward to the fulfillment of your wonderful promises through the prophet Isaiah.
Give us the grace, O Lord, on this season of Advent to look forward to a better future, to a more blessed present moment than the past; help us understand the words of Jesus Christ your Son about John the Baptist:
Jesus said to the crowds, “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Matthew 11:11
Yes, in the past before Jesus Christ's coming, it was such a very great time to have heard and witnessed John's ministry; there is no doubt about his great role in preparing the way of the Lord; however, it was Jesus himself who claimed, and rightly so, even the least among us is greater than John who never witnessed and experienced the fruits of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross!
It has been two years since this pandemic altered our lives and made life so difficult to many of us; until now, we keep on going back to the good old days of the past before the pandemic; help us to move on, Jesus, and look forward to better Christmas, better new year in 2022 if we can be more open to you. Amen.
