The Institute for Christian Formation
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Second Sunday of Advent
December 8, 2013
Today is the Second Sunday of Advent. When you light your Advent Wreath today, and each day this Second Week of Advent, you will light two violet candles.
Our Gospel for today, Matthew 3:1-12, features one of our major Advent personages, John the Baptist. This Gospel quotes the prophet Isaiah, and makes the connection between Isaiah’s prophecy and John the Baptist as the messenger fulfilling this prophecy.
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St. John the Baptist
Michael Damaskinos
16th Century
Please note that the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, usually celebrated on December 8, is transferred to Monday, December 9 this year. This year (2013) it is not a Holy Day of Obligation in the USA.
John the Baptist is an interesting Biblical character. As a prophet preparing the way for Jesus, he acts a a bridge, as it were, between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures.
John can also be viewed as an eccentric character, as he is described in Matthew 3:4 today as wearing clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His diet consists of locusts and wild honey. Children, especially, love these details about John the Baptist. Let children create their own artistic depiction of the Baptist. In honor of John the Baptist, enjoy some honey today, perhaps with a biscuit at dinner or in a cup of tea during the afternoon or evening.
Loyola Press, as part of their Intergenerational Advent Event, has materials for a John the Baptist activity center, which includes a script for a simple play about John the Baptist, a simple John the Baptist song for young children, a John the Baptist coloring page, as well as a recipe for “grasshopper” (think locust!) cookies. You can access these pages at the Loyola Press web site here.
In your prayer today, include the hymn, "On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry." You can download this hymn here.
Our First Reading today is Isaiah 11:1-10. We heard this Gospel proclaimed this past Tuesday, December 3. This reading is about the shoot, or root, of Jesse. On our page for December 2, we talked about the Jesse Tree Advent activity. Revisit this page today. Is a Jesse Tree part of your Advent Season this year? It is not too late to create a Jesse Tree beginning today!
This First Reading from Isaiah is a very rich one. Can you name the gifts of the Holy Spirit? Today's passage is the source of the traditional names of these gifts of the Spirit. Today's reading also gives us that beautiful image of Paradise restored, with the wolf being the guest of the lamb and the baby playing by the cobra's den. This would be another lovely image to draw today. As an individual, a family project, or a classroom assignment, why not create a picture or a mural of Paradise restored, based on Isaiah 11:6-9?
A book recommendation for today is "The Jesse Tree," written by Geraldine McCaughrean and illustrated by Bee Willey. This book is published by Eerdmans, and the ISBN is 978-0-8028-5288-5. In this book a young boy comes across a man carving a Jesse Tree in an old church, and the boy's curiosity paves the way for the man to tell him the tradition of the Jesse Tree as well as stories from the Hebrew Scriptures. If your local library doesn't have this book, you can purchase it on line in either hardcover or paperback.
As a special treat for today, perhaps you could make a cake and decorate it with a Jesse Tree, or a wolf and lamb. Or check out how creative one person became in making Jesse Tree cookies.
