“If only” — funny how those two words pop up everywhere, like a pop-up ad for the human heart.

– If only I had a better boss, maybe work would finally mean something.
– If only my family didn’t argue every Christmas, maybe we’d finally be one of those picture-perfect families in the Hallmark Channel movies.
– If only my friends understood me, I wouldn’t feel so alone in a crowded room.

“If only.” It slips into our thoughts so quietly, but it multiplies fast.
If only I looked better.
If only I could just stop that habit.
If only I finally landed that internship, got noticed, scored higher…
If only I found “the one” — or another one.

We don’t realize it, but it becomes the running soundtrack of our lives. We start to believe happiness is always one fix, one achievement, one relationship away. Just out of reach — always next, never now.

Thank you for taking the time to read this homily for the SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (December 7, 2025). Your support means a great deal to me, and I’m deeply grateful for the many who share these messages with their friends, families and social media followers. If you’ve found meaning in these words, I’d be grateful if you’d share them with others who might benefit.

And for those who prefer listening, you can find the audio version on SoundCloud HERE or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes HERE. Your comments, messages, and the way you’ve embraced these homilies continue to inspire me.  Sincerely in Christ -Father Jim

Then we come to today’s Scripture, and what do we hear in that first reading? Isaiah doesn’t whisper to our longings. He pours gasoline on them and strikes a match:

Suddenly we’re hearing wild things:
A world where wolves nap beside lambs.
Leopards stretch out with young goats.
Bears and cows graze together — not a claw in sight.
A toddler plays carefree near a snake’s hole, and nobody panics.

It’s a vision so big, so strange, it almost feels like a pitch for a bizarre Netflix nature show: “Animals Gone Mild.”

You hear it and maybe a voice in your head says: “Sure, Isaiah. That’s nice. But that’s not our world. In this world, wolves eat lambs. Snakes bite. The strong take from the weak. That’s just the way things are.”

But here’s the shocking thing: Isaiah isn’t telling fairy tales or drawing Disney backgrounds. He’s a prophet, which means God is speaking through him with fire — not fantasy. And Isaiah’s message isn’t that God might one day make things slightly better, if only we manage things right. It’s that God intends a world more whole, more peaceful, more true than our tired imaginations dare to picture.

See, God’s dreams are bigger than ours.

We dream survival — God dreams peace.
We aim for coping — He aims for restoration.
We settle for “getting by” — He offers a new creation.

But here’s the catch. The way to that world doesn’t begin with a to-do list or another self-help book. It starts with a man shouting at the crossroads.

Cue John the Baptist who we encounter in this Gospel.  Not the most polished or refined  man you’d ever encounter.    Out in the wilderness, hair like one of the guys from “Duck Dynasty,”  clothes scratchy as a Brillo pad, subsisting on locusts.  And he’s not off in the backwoods. He’s at the Jordan River — the center of everything, the O’Hare or LAX of the ancient world. Everyone passed through the Jordan; everyone hears him.

And what’s John shouting?

Not, “Dream bigger!”
Not, “Manifest your destiny!”
Not, “Live your truth!”
Not, “If only you fix this, you’ll finally be whole!”

One word. The hard, honest word that cuts through all our “if onlys”:

Repent.

Repent.

Not shame, not self-loathing, not punishment. Repentance, at its core, is letting God in — really in — to the real, messy, unedited version of us. It’s turning around. It’s choosing to believe peace begins on the inside, not from fixing one more thing on the outside.

Because think about what Isaiah’s vision says?  God doesn’t get rid of the wolves and bears; He transforms them. He doesn’t banish the snake; He removes its venom. He doesn’t erase the hard parts — He changes them from the inside out.

So what does repentance look like? Just honesty.

“God, here’s where I’m weak.”
“Here’s what I tried to fix on my own, but it keeps breaking.”
“Here’s the wound I keep numbing with distractions.”
“Here’s where my ‘if only’ is eating me alive.”

And God says, “There. That’s the place I’ve been waiting for. That’s where I want to start.”

Repentance is for all of us.

College students. Young professionals. Parents, grandparents. Priests… Anyone with a pulse and a hope for peace.  It’s not about hiding the cracks — it’s letting God use them.  It’s choosing honesty over keeping up appearances.

It’s making peace instead of holding grudges.

It’s letting God interrupt your cynicism and call you out of autopilot, out of addiction, out of the “if onlys” that never deliver.

And sure, repentance includes confession (yes, that sacrament that so many Catholics skip, thinking it’s just for someone else). But before it’s an act, it’s an attitude — the readiness to let God begin right where we are.

John preaches at a crossroads. So do we — crossroads where what we want and what we’re doing finally meet. Advent itself is a crossroads, a collision point, a holy intersection.

That’s why we light candles week by week: not just because it’s a nice tradition, but because we dare to believe darkness isn’t the end of the story. Every “if only” that rises in your heart? That’s not a failure — that’s an invitation. It’s the space where God wants to do something new.

So lets let John the Baptist annoy us a little. Let him interrupt our safe, routine spiritual playlists. He’s shouting not to make us feel guilty, but because something is about to happen. Someone is coming. Not the Lord of polite, perfectly beautiful ceramic nativity scenes, but the living God who breaks into actual lives — messy lives, real lives, lives filled with wolves and lambs and things we’d rather hide.

Jesus isn’t waiting for a better, edited version of you.

He’s coming for the real you:
The tired you, the anxious you,
the “I should pray more, but I’m binging this show” you, the distracted, worried, “if only” you.
That place — that’s His starting line.

Isaiah’s vision isn’t a fantasy. It’s a blueprint for what happens when we let God in. Wolves lose their appetite for destruction. Fear loses its bite. Old wounds start to heal. Places we thought were dead begin to bloom.

Let this be the Advent we stop chasing the next “if only,”
and instead, hand them all to our loving Heavenly Father.

Saying: “Here. Start with the places I’d rather ignore. Start where I need peace most.”

The kingdom of God isn’t far off. It’s not a someday. It’s closer than our next breath.

Repent.

Turn around.

We just might find that the life we’ve been chasing can’t compare to the one God is ready to build with each one of us.

The kingdom is at hand — and it is infinitely better than anything our “if only” could ever dream up.