Today, St. Matthew's Gospel presents us with John the Baptist inviting us to conversion: “the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Mt 3,2).
Many people went to him looking to be baptized and “acknowledged their sins.” (Mt 3,6). But from the whole crowd, John focuses on some individuals in particular, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as much in need of conversion as they were obstinate in the denial of such a necessity. It is to them that the Baptist directs the words “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance” (Mt 3,8).
Having started Advent, a time of joyful anticipation, we find ourselves listening to John's exhortation, which wakes us to the fact that this wait is not a passive “quietism”, nor that we should think that we are already saved by the mere virtue of being Christians. This anticipation, this wait, is the dynamic searching for the mercy of God, it is the conversion of the heart, it is the search for the presence of the Lord who came, who comes and who will come again.
Advent, in reality is “conversion that crosses over from the heart into action and, consequently, to the eternal life of the Christian: (Saint John Paul II).
We should make good use of this opportune time which the Lord has given us to renovate our option for Jesus Christ, ridding ourselves of all the things that may be in our hearts and our lives that impede us from receiving Him properly. The voice of the Baptist still resounds in the desert of our times: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” (Mt 3, 3).
Just as John was seen as “A voice of one crying out in the desert”, we Christians are invited by the Lord to be voices that proclaim to our fellow man the desire for a vigilant wait “Prepare the ways, the Savior approaches and we come out, pilgrims, to meet the Lord. Come, Lord, set us free, come to redeem your people; purify our lives and don't delay” (Hymn of Advent, The Liturgy of the Hours).