Reflection for Sunday – December 7, 2025

Gloria UlterinoSunday Readings Homilies

Readings: Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15: 4-9; Matthew 3: 1-12 
Preacher: Gloria Ulterino

 What a beautiful new year!  It’s Advent, and once again we’re beginning another new liturgical year. On this Second Sunday we’re not only invited … but urged … to become more aware.  For what and for whom are we grateful?  Where and how can we see the goodness of God, even in the midst of any struggles, or illness, or whatever might otherwise keep us down?  Where is our hope?

When I was younger and active in parish ministry, I distinctly remember preaching on John the Baptist on this Second Sunday of Advent.  His mission. as he understood it, was to wake people up.  Turn people around!  There’s not much time left!  In fact, I even dressed as he might have, only to hear a giggle from a good friend, when we— priest and preacher—were about to process into the community.

This year is different.  I’m older now and ever more aware of so many gifts in my life: a good and loving family and very dear friends.  Good health, even in the midst of some struggles.  So, in my focus on awareness this year, it is the magnificent prophet Isaiah who captures my heart and imagination.  His poetry!  His words that simply cannot be ignored, that must be taken in and acted upon.  Right now.  As the new liturgical year begins.  

You can understand what I’m saying, can’t you?  Yes, each of us has known struggles.  And, surely, each of us can name gifts offered to us over the years.  Gifts of hope to counter any of the human messes that might surround us.  Gifts of tenderness, profound enough, and even resilient enough, to embrace our deepest needs.

  I remember the moment when I first became aware of my gift for preaching, one which I had never previously imagined.  I had signed up for a week-long workshop with Sr. Joan Delaplane, a well-known and gifted preacher.  What a week!  Every day she preached.  Every day, I kept thinking, “I’ve got to learn how to do that!”  And then, by the grace of God and our bishop, Most Rev. Matthew Clark, I was offered the opportunity by our parish priests (yes, we had two, working together).  Uncertain at first, I quickly realized my love of and for preaching.  It took much time to prepare but meant so very much.      

 I say all this to reveal the depth of today’s readings for me, in this beautiful season of beginning again.  How can we become more aware of the genuine goodness in our lives, even—and maybe especially— in the midst of any struggles and difficulties?  How can we allow those memories and current gifts to offer us any hope and strength right here and right now?  So that we can pass them along to others who might be in need?

In reflecting on this, there’s a phrase that just refuses to leave me alone: deep and wide.  Deep and wide… is the love and tenderness of God for each and every one of us.  Deep and wide… is the divine hope that our own very tiny love might grow… and expand… and begin to cover even a tiny portion of this wide, hurting world in which we live.  Deep and wide is the divine love that never leaves us alone, until we get a glimmer and begin to long for more.  Until we really know it and feel it and finally long to unleash it for the good of everyone around us.  Yes, even for the ones we would prefer to ignore.

Now, you know what I’m suggesting, don’t you?  Haven’t you experienced this kind of profound love?  Isn’t now—at the beginning of yet another Church year—precisely the right time, to pass it along?  So that others just might possibly hear God’s music deep in their own hearts?  Deep and wide, like a fountain flowing deep within us.  Deep and wide, will it end or begin us?  Deep and wide: Isn’t this magnificent season of Advent the perfect time to let this awareness grow … and become more?  So that a world, even the tiny world in which we live, always in need of hope at any and every moment, just might receive a glimmer of God’s truth … and love… and healing… and generosity… deep and wide, enough for us all.  Surely, even the tiniest gift we receive absolutely must be passed along.  

 So it is today that I simply must sing my song of awareness of God’s goodness, with the hope that it touches yet one more heart.  Indeed, I express my deepest hope to each and to all that this new liturgical year will bear gifts of love, healing, and encouragement, especially to those who are most in need.   

Gloria Ulterino
Latest posts by Gloria Ulterino (see all)
Share