Desert Into Marshland

I will turn the desert into a marshland,/ and the dry ground into springs of water. (Is 41:18).  These are consoling words that balance the sobering words of Jesus in today's Gospel that "the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force." (Mt 11: 12).  Jesus saw violence in his own life: his passion and death, and Christians have suffered violence through persecution even till  today, but as Jesus rose from the dead, the prophecy of Isaiah still stands, that the "desert" of genocide and terrorism in which we live will someday be turned around into verdant and productive land.  Isaiah is the prophet of promise and hope; his message is still relevant today and needs to be reiterated to those of us who might be tempted to cynicism or skepticism.  Advent is the time to renew that hope, to listen to the voices of the past and look toward the promise of the Second Coming of Jesus, guaranteed by the first coming at Bethlehem.. As Jesus said, ""Whoever has ears ought hear." (Mt 11:1 5).
Bro. Rene