Prepare the Way

We read these words in the prophet Isaiah: “A voice cries out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord!  Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”  The Lord wishes to find a way by which he might enter your hearts and walk therein. Prepare this way for him of whom it is said: “Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.”  The voice cries out in the desert: “Prepare the way.”  This voice first reaches our ears; and then following it, or rather with it, the Word penetrates our understanding.  It is in this sense that Christ was announced by John.

Let us see, therefore, what the voice announces concerning the Word.  “Prepare,” says the voice, “the way of the Lord.”  What way are we to prepare for the Lord?  Is it a material way?  Can the Word of God take such a way?  Ought we not rather to prepare an inner way for the Lord by making the paths of our heart straight and smooth?  Indeed, this is the way by which the Word of God enters in order to take up his abode in the human heart made ready to receive him.

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955)