"Lower the Mountains (of Pride)" - 2nd Sunday of Advent Homily

Tomorrow we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrating the conception of Mary in the womb of her mother, St.

Anne.

When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, he referred to her as full of grace.

So we believe that she was full of the grace of God her entire life, which began at conception.

God chose her and created her to be that perfect vessel through whom his son would come into the world.

And also a perfect example for us, we hear about straight paths and smooth roads in the readings today.

Think about Mary and so many of our mothers, that's the way they lived.

It's straight, smooth, good, consistent.

living.

With good habits we call virtues.

And the rest of us are all over the place.

We're up and down the hills and valleys and winding roads, in and out.

to the point where we've had enough.

If you've taken a long walk or a long run, and yeah, the hill might be a challenge at first, and it's exciting to go down the hill, and then you just kind of get, okay, enough

of the hills, and then you just go back to flat path, flat ground, and the winding road just takes longer than the straight shot.

That may be where we are right now in this Advent.

I was thinking about the word adventure the other day.

And Advent is the stem of adventure.

And I don't know a more profound connection other than we might just get to Advent this Advent saying enough of the adventure.

I want that calm, consistent, peaceful, good living regularly.

And that's what the readings call us to.

It talks about lowering the mountains.

The first reading, the lofty

mountain be made low and the hills to be filled.

So we have these lofty mountains in our lives that like a long run or walk up and down, up and down, it takes a toll.

These mountains that we hope are made low, these mountains of sin and vice bad habits, enough already.

and for the valleys of virtue to be filled.

So it's nice, straight, kind flat living.

That's called the virtues.

Now every sin is caused by and based in pride.

And it tips us off when it refers to the lofty mountain, the lofty view we have of ourselves.

That should be made low.

And that's really going to help with all the other mountains.

If with God's help, especially through confession, that pride can be lowered.

If it leads to sin, then there's other sins that are not being committed from our pride.

I'll give you a couple of examples.

First, if we have a bad habit with lying

Again, based on pride.

To save face, to save our reputation, our standing, our image.

So to lower that mountain means to be honest.

And raise humility, which literally means honesty.

It's not just a moral issue, it becomes a personal issue.

Where if we make this habit, we start to question our own identity.

Like, am I for real or am I a phony?

And that's really hard on the heart.

The other mountain of pride might be in our reactions to Reacting with anger, or defensiveness, or over-sensitivity, overthinking things.

At some point we just have to laugh at ourselves and not take ourselves so seriously.

That's healthy, that's good.

And the big step in all of it that really helps to lower the mountains is to say, I'm not perfect.

I'm a sinner.

Why do I expect perfection from myself and from those around me?

That's really helpful in taking the pressure off a lot of these puffed up mountains that aren't real.

And God in Advent is saying, let's lower them folks.

Let me lower them for you and build up what you really want, the good habits based in humility.

It again becomes as much a personal as moral thing.

It's really heavy in our hearts.

Like it's heavy in our bodies and our feet to run up and down hills for long distances.

So it's heavy in our hearts to carry the burdens of sin through pride.

So to lower the mountains,

is to lighten the load for our hearts.

It's one of the biggest things Jesus wants with us and from us and for us.

And lessen the number of mountains, the number of bad habits that pride might lead to.

And then help us to be more open to the grace like Mary was her whole life, like our mothers have been open, more open to the grace of Christ, especially in the Eucharist.