“Prepare the way of the Lord,,

  Make his paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,        

And every mountain and hill shall be    

made low,  and the crooked shall be made smooth;

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”  Luke 3: 4b-6

This morning with our lectio I was impressed with “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”Sometimes that is hard to believe, and the I remembered a delightful story from the book The Way ofThe Wolf by Martin Bell.  The story is call “rag-Tag Army”.  I’d like to take some quotes from it to illustrate my point.

“I think God must be very old and very tired.  Maybe he used to look splendid and fine in his general’s uniform, but no more.  He’s been on the march a long time, you know.  And look at his rag-tag little army!  All he has for soldiers are you and me.  Dumb little army, Listen!  The drum beat isn’t even regular.  Everyone is out of step.  And there!  You see?  God keeps stopping along the way to pick up one of his tinier soldiers who decided to wander off and play with a frog, or run in a field, or whose foot got tangled in the underbrush.  He’ll never get anywhere that way.  And yet, the march goes on.

If God were more sensible he’d take his little army and shape them up.  Why, whoever heard of a solder stopping to romp in a field?  It’s ridiculous.  But even more absurd is a general who will stop the march of eternity to go and bring him back.  But that’s God for you.  His is not endless, empty marching.  He is going somewhere.  His steps are deliberate and purposeful.  He may be old and he may be tired.  But he knows where he’s going, and means to take every last one of tiny soldiers with him.  Only there aren’t going to be any forced marches.  And after all, there are frogs and flowers, and thorns and underbrush on the way. . .And most of us are afraid and lonely and would like to hold hands or cry or run away.  And we don’t know where we are going, and we can’t seem to trust God—especially when it’s dark out and we can’t see him.  But He won’t go on without us.”

Thus our God is preparing and waiting for the salvation of All.

  by Sister Clare Carr, OSB