Hear the voice of once calling out: Prepare, prepare!
Turn from your ways and repent. I say: be aware!
Make straight the roads and the mountains make low,
Ready the way, believe in your heart, and know:
I baptize you with water to make the body clean
Follow me and I will show you just what I mean.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire
His birth was proclaimed by an angel choir.
Good as I may be,
Compared to Him I am unworthy.
He has come to set the prisoners free,
He came to save the likes of you and me
He has come to seek and save the lost
And He came to pay the highest cost.
He has come to make the blind see and the lame walk,
He came to call sinners and make the mute talk.
I stand before you today to testify to the Holy One,
I stand before you to proclaim the love of God’s only son.
Awake sleeper and rise from your bed
For the King with no place to lay his head.
Fix your eyes to heaven, set your heart on higher things
Be washed in the river of life and experience what it brings.
There is new life in Him; the old is gone away.
He is life, His word is truth, His light will show the way
I am the voice in the wilderness calling out.
Your waiting will soon be rewarded, have no doubt.
I am the one sent ahead to tend the fields
That when he comes, he may have bountiful yields.
Prepare your hearts and homes to receive
The one who was, and is, and ever will be.
He, of whom the angels sing and shepherds find
He, to whom wise-men bow down and with whom sinners dined.
I am the voice to quicken your hearts and point to the light,
I am the voice of hope and joy against the darkness of the night.
Written this past Friday in Adoration at St. Peter's Catholic Church. A reflection on today's Gospel reading
