There are two different ways of interpreting the line that John the Baptist quoted from Isaiah. “The voice of one crying: out in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord.” Or. “The voice of one crying out in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord.”
What is the difference between the two? The first one is saying that we have to go out into the desert, and make a way for the Lord. This seems to be the punctuation and meaning from Isaiah’s original prophecy. The second one is someone who is already in the desert and he is crying from the desert “make straight the way of the Lord.”
The two are not disconnected, but they have a different focus. To put it simply, the second one happens for people who have already experienced the first.
The first one tells us that we have to be ready to go out into uncomfortable places, the uncomfortable places that we find ourselves in through our own personal suffering.
A number of the mystical saints talk about a “desert experience”, a time or experience of varying lengths where there is a sense that many things are hard in the spiritual life. …read more
Source:: Fr. Frank Jindra’s Homily Podcasts
