Today’s first reading was from the 35th Chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah Chapter 35 is quite brief, but it’s one of the loveliest passages in the Bible. Samuel Sebastian Wesley set nearly the whole Chapter to music in his great Anthem “The Wilderness”: of course according to the sonorous cadences of the Bible authorised by King James in the early 17th century. We have the same text most memorably set by Handel in his Messiah.
Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, 4 December 2022: Matthew 3:1-12
On this Second Sunday of Advent, the figure of St John the Baptist bursts onto the scene. As St Matthew gives no details of his origins, we must turn to St Luke, who tells us that he is the cousin of Jesus: six months his senior. John’s birth was foretold, and his name given to Zechariah his father by the angel Gabriel, who proclaimed that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother’s womb. In Elizabeth’s womb John leaps at the presence of Jesus, who is in Mary’s womb. John becomes strong in the spirit, and then “was in the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel”.