1st Week of Advent 2018 - Tuesday - Hope for Salvation

Throughout Advent, as we await and prepare for the coming of the Savior, so many of our scripture readings are taken from the prophet Isaiah.  The name Isaiah literally means “God is salvation”.  That’s the bottom line of Isaiah’s prophecies—God is salvation.   What is salvation?  What does it mean that God is our Salvation?

In today’s reading, Isaiah gives us a picture of what salvation looks like in that beautiful passage speaking of peace and harmony.
Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the baby goat;
The baby shall play by the cobra's den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder's lair.
There shall be no harm or ruin an all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord,
as water covers the sea.

Isaiah foretells God bringing all of creation under his peaceful and just dominion.  This is what we long for, this is what we hope for, this is what we desire.

The promise of salvation is certainly a comfort amidst all of the evils we face. We look around to see a world falling apart from strife, jealousy, violence, fear, destruction and perversion, man at odds with the forces of nature, man at odds with his brother, men and women at odds, man living as if God did not exist. And God promises that he will save us from all of that. He’ll put an end to all of that.

This is the truth that is “hidden from the wise and the learned” as Jesus says in the Gospel today. Because the wise and the learned think that science will save us, or politics will save us, the right socio-economic policy will save us, psychology will save us. But Christians have a knowledge that not even the prophets and kings of old had, it is Jesus Christ who saves us from evil, sin, and death.

So much of our Advent preparation is deepening our hope in the one who saves, acknowledging that He is the peace we long for, His is the face we long to gaze upon, He is the end to the destruction and ruin and misery and hatred and oppression and violence, He is Our salvation, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
- - - - - - -

We raise up our prayers of petitions, as we await with longing the Advent of Christ the Lord.

That through the witness of the Christian Church, Our Lord will bring hope to the hopeless and joy to the joyless.

That our president and all civil servants will carry out their duties with justice, honesty, and respect for the dignity of every human life.  We pray to the Lord.

That Christ may banish disease, drive out hunger, ward off every affliction, and bring peace to the suffering.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for Mary Mahoney Scanlon for whom this Mass is offered.

Almighty ever-living God, who bring salvation to all and desire that no one should perish, hear the prayers of your people and grant that the course of our world may be directed by your peaceful rule and your Church rejoice in tranquility and devotion. Through Christ our Lord.