{UAH} Advent Reflections by Bishop Robert Barron - Day 8

Advent Day 8

The Axis Mundi

Let's return to the image of the holy mountain, which we've focus on so far during Advent: "The mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it" (Is 2:2). This is a beautifully archetypal image: Jerusalem as the axis mundi, the pole of the earth, the center, the still-point around which everything turns. It is the place of communio, of connection. Here all peoples, while retaining what is proper to them, nevertheless come together in unity. No one dominates or manipulates another, but rather all are one in their distinctiveness because all have found the same center. This is a picture of what God intends for the soul and for the nations of the world: all remain themselves, but all are connected to each other through the center. Now there is a most interesting parallel to this reading in Isaiah, found in the Gospel of John: "When the Son of Man is lifted up from the earth, he will draw all people to himself" (Jn 12:32). This, of course, is Jesus' own self-description. When he is lifted up on the cross, he will unify the whole human race. What a surprise and paradox! The vision of Isaiah is fulfilled, but not as we might have expected. The mountain of the Lord is a dung-heap outside of Jerusalem, the skull-place, Mt. Calvary, where the Son of God is crucified. The cross is the place where the divine love is most radically on display. God's power, God's godliness, is most fully revealed precisely in the place of self-emptying love, where he takes on our suffering and gives us his life. This must become the center of all that we are, all that we think, and all that we choose.

Paul Mugerwa