Reflection for Monday, Dec. 7

Sections of today’s reading from Isaiah 35 bring much joy to me on this 9th day of Advent.  The first few verses paint a picture of nature’s paradise.

“The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe (a vast semiarid grassland) will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song.
The glory of Lebanon (a white snowcapped, tree-laden mountain with rich land and abundant vegetation, rising abruptly 10,000 feet from the Mediterranean) will be given to them,
the splendor of Carmel (a mountain within 200 yards of the Mediterranean rising 2,000 feet, covered with rich land, rivers, and forests) and Sharon; (a thickly forested, fertile, well-watered plain along the Mediterranean Sea)
They will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.”

The beautiful poetry of these verses led me to research these places we often hear mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. I was touched by the image of beauty and abundance and life-giving sustenance that are herein portrayed and promised. I was reminded of how precious are the gifts of the EARTH and how much we enjoy and are renewed by the beauty of creation. How important, in our age of environmental degradation, is our care for the abundant bounty of God’s precious gifts of nature! Through our efforts may those places, whose flourishing is now being jeopardized, “see the glory of the Lord and the splendor of our God.”

Sr. Elaine Betoncourt, C.S.J.