Prepare a way

I've been in Austria, at a Chapter meeting with sisters from Austria, Germany and Hungary, joined by a few of us from this country and Ireland. Last Saturday evening we ushered in Advent, with a trilingual liturgy which began with Taizé's Wait for the Lord. Our voices rose and spontaneously harmonised, English, German and Hungarian blending and becoming indistinguishable from each other: Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord: be strong, take heart! We can talk easily about our Cor Unum, but there truly was something palpably moving, for all of us, to be in this small chapel filled with women from different cultures, backgrounds and languages, all united in the grace of our charism and call, and in our desire and longing and waiting for God's advent, in each of us, and in our midst. 

It had been snowing all day, stopping sometime during the night. Sunday dawned clear, with a low winter sun adorning a brilliantly blue sky. My bedroom faced onto the inner courtyard, but when I looked out onto the street, I could see workers had already been busy, clearing and gritting a path along pavements. Hard work for some, to make progress so much easier for everyone else. And something within me proclaimed Prepare a way for the Lord...

After lunch, I went for a walk. Air so crisp and cold it sliced into me; sun so bright the snow shone with gleaming whiteness. Everywhere, paths had been cleared, though in places ice stubbornly clung to tarmac, defying the sun's ineffectual attempts at melting it. As I walked between tiny peaks of stacked up snow I thought smilingly of small, frothy waves, and then of Moses and the Red Sea. And throughout, like a refrain...

Prepare a way for the Lord.
Make a straight highway for our God...
then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
and all humanity shall see it...

Tomorrow's scripture, a week early; and why not? Because this is the call of all our lives - yearlong, not only in Advent: to prepare a way for the Lord to enter into our hearts, and those around us, so that the glory of God shall be revealed, for all to see it...

How is God calling each of us to clear and prepare a way for him...?