{"id":4328,"date":"2025-12-07T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=4328"},"modified":"2025-12-05T12:00:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T12:00:17","slug":"a-straight-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2025\/12\/07\/a-straight-path\/benedictine-spirituality\/4328\/","title":{"rendered":"A straight path."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A-voice-cries-in-the-wilderness-prepare-away-for-the-Lord-make-his-paths-straight-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A-voice-cries-in-the-wilderness-prepare-away-for-the-Lord-make-his-paths-straight-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A-voice-cries-in-the-wilderness-prepare-away-for-the-Lord-make-his-paths-straight-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A-voice-cries-in-the-wilderness-prepare-away-for-the-Lord-make-his-paths-straight-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A-voice-cries-in-the-wilderness-prepare-away-for-the-Lord-make-his-paths-straight-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A-voice-cries-in-the-wilderness-prepare-away-for-the-Lord-make-his-paths-straight-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A-voice-cries-in-the-wilderness-prepare-away-for-the-Lord-make-his-paths-straight.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Photo by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As we begin the second week of Advent the call to attentiveness becomes more urgent with the appearance of John the Baptist. John, Jesus\u2019 cousin is an uncomfortable and challenging figure. He is the ultimate outsider, everything about him seems designed to challenge us and make us uncomfortable. <br><br>His message, with its call to repentance, is even more disconcerting than his appearance and lifestyle. It\u2019s tempting either to sanitise him or ignore him. Instead, the gospel calls us to give him and his message our wholehearted attention.<br><br>\u201cA voice cries in the wilderness: prepare away for the Lord, make his paths straight.\u201d<br><br>We\u2019re already overwhelmed with preparation in Advent. As we speed toward Christmas we\u2019re necessarily full of plans to arrange cards and presents, food, parties, church services, liturgies and all kinds of gatherings. When we hear John\u2019s call it can feel like there is no space left for any more preparation in the busyness of our lives.<br><br>John\u2019s call, and the call of Advent, is about a different sort of preparation. It involves taking time to look within our hearts. It\u2019s a time for acknowledging and accepting inner wilderness we all carry within us. John\u2019s call to repentance is a call, not to hide that inner wilderness from Christ, but to acknowledge and welcome him into it. <br><br>From his place on the margins John calls us to bring all the marginalised parts of ourselves into Christ\u2019s presence, exposing them to his loving, healing gaze.<br><br>How are you being called to make a straight path in your heart for Christ this Advent?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we begin the second week of Advent the call to attentiveness becomes more urgent with the appearance of John the Baptist. John, Jesus\u2019 cousin is an uncomfortable and challenging figure. He is the ultimate outsider, everything about him seems designed to challenge us and make us uncomfortable. His message, with its call to repentance, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274,222,494,239,400,271,286,246],"tags":[276,466,28,18,53,6,8,197,33,229,13,29,15,451,724,10,338],"class_list":["post-4328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-gospel","category-john-the-baptist","category-lectio-divina","category-prophetic-voices","category-scripture","tag-advent","tag-adventweek2","tag-benedictine","tag-challenge","tag-christ","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-johnthebaptist","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-prepare","tag-repent","tag-trust","tag-wilderness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4337,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}