Second Sunday of Advent 2025
You know this time of year in the North Country, you never quite know what you’re going to wake up to. Some mornings you open the door and it’s peaceful… other mornings it looks like Canada has blown its entire winter inventory onto Route 22. But thank God for snowplows. Long before most of us even pour a cup of coffee, they’re out on the roads—clearing, scraping, pushing aside everything that keeps us from getting where we need to go. They make a safe path. They make it possible to move forward. Today’s readings give us the spiritual version of that. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.” John the Baptist is basically the original spiritual snowplow. He clears the way for Jesus. And he invites us to do the same. A snowplow can only do its job if it pushes something out of the way—ice, snow, slush, whatever winter throws at us. In the same way, John the Baptist calls us to repentance. Repentance isn’t about guilt trips; it’s about clearing away the things that block...