Advent

Dec 13 2024

Reflection-The Touch of God

Marge Piercy’s poem “The Tao of Touch” reminds us of the power of touch. A person can die either without touch or because of touch. There is the touch of love that brings healing and joy, and those blows that shatter bones and relationships. Today’s Gospel recalls how God’s touch transformed the lives of two women—and the world.

I have a carved wooden statue of Mary gently resting her two hands along Elizabeth’s belly as their two foreheads touch. You can imagine tears, laughter, and words springing from pure joy. Elizabeth must have gasped as the life in her womb exuberantly kicked up his heels in greeting.

Not only her body but her words of blessing gave witness to creation’s joy: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb,” Elizabeth cried. “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken by the Lord would be fulfilled,” she sang. Scripture says the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth, that Spirit whose gifts include joy, wisdom, and peace, that Spirit who had brought into being the child now growing in her cousin’s womb.

Advent’s fourth Sunday always takes us into the company of Jesus’ kin, putting the spotlight either on Mary, Joseph, or Elizabeth. We enter the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus, God’s Son, who came into the lives of ordinary people and transformed them, making them part of God’s plan for the salvation of the world. This loving plan continues to be worked out in and through us.

Consider/Discuss

How do you imagine this meeting between Mary and Elizabeth?
What helps you to enter the joy Luke presents in this short scene?
How can this moment help you to enter the joy appropriate to Christmas?

Responding to the Word

Beloved God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, help us in these final hours of Advent to set aside anything that prevents us from entering into the joy befitting the birth of your Son. Send us that same Spirit that came upon Elizabeth, filling her heart and soul with such great joy.

Dec 13 2024

The Touch of God

Micah’s prophecy states that salvation will come from an insignificant village rather than from the royal city; the power of the ruler comes from God; and a time of trial will be followed by a time of security and peace. Since Bethlehem was the place of David’s origin, the reference is rich in early royal importance that is quite distinct from any association with Jerusalem, the dynastic capital of the present reigning royal family. The new ruler promised will be called forth for God and strengthened by God. His rule will be like that of a shepherd who leads, protects, and provides for those in his care.

The passage from Hebrews contains a contrast between the ancient sacrificial ritual and the sacrifice of Christ. Though compliance to the will of God is clearly stated, the specific focus is Christ’s offering of his body. The author argues that Christ annuls the first kind of sacrifice (external adherence to law) in order to establish the second (internal obedience). By freely offering his body in sacrifice, Christ identifies his own will with the will of God. We are sanctified through this same sacrifice, not through any sacrifice required by law. For it was through his human body, a body like ours, that he demonstrated his obedience.

In the Gospel passage, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaims her faith in the child that Mary is carrying. Elizabeth realizes that she is in the presence of God, and so she rejoices. It is as if Mary is the ark and the child within her is the glory of God. In response to this wondrous experience, Elizabeth exalts first Mary and then her child. She does not pronounce a blessing over them. Instead, she recognizes the blessedness that they possess and she praises it. This blessedness is derived from the dignity of the child, a dignity that Elizabeth acknowledges by referring to him as her Lord (kýrios).

Dec 13 2024

Reflection-St. Paul’s Five-Step Program

St. Paul’s letters always offer practical advice, flowing from whatever particular teaching he offers. Today’s second reading contains a series of suggestions on how to live joyfully in Christ. They can be heard as independent statements. But consider Paul’s words as offering a program for “rejoicing in the Lord always.”

First, he advises, “let your kindness be known to all.” This advice reminds me of a bumper sticker: “Commit random acts of kindness.” In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist’s call for repentance offers some concrete forms of living kindly. “If you have two cloaks, share one with someone who has none,” he says to the crowds. He then advises tax collectors not to use their office to gouge the people, and he advises soldiers not to bully or blackmail.

Paul’s second “step” calls us to keep aware that the Lord is near. Our God does not abandon us, even though we have times we might not feel God’s presence. Remember the words of the risen Lord: “I will be with you always, even to the end of time” (Matthew 28:20).

Paul’s third word advises us how to keep aware of Christ by turning to him whenever anxiety threatens to overwhelm us, and uniting our prayers with his as we make our requests known to the Father. When this is done, steps four and five follow, when peace will “guard your hearts and minds,” and out of this peace joy will flow joy as a gift of the Spirit.

Consider/Discuss

When have you known joy in your life? Is it the same as happiness?
Are you able to make your requests known to God?
Have you asked for the gift of joy from the Holy Spirit?

Responding to the Word

God who created all things and who sent Jesus to be with us until the end of our days, hear my prayer this day that I may know the joy of the risen Lord. Give me an awareness that the Lord is indeed near, and send the peace that surpasses all understanding into my heart.

Dec 13 2024

Reflection-Dressing Up

Getting “dressed up” does not seem to happen so much these days. No matter where you go, garb tends to be casual—funerals and weddings excepted (usually!). Jeans have replaced the suit, T-shirts and crew necks stand in for the traditional shirt and tie, and sneakers sub for dress shoes. Gone are most occasions when getting dressed up was de rigueur.

Today’s readings are as much a “dress-up” call as a wake-up call. Baruch calls on Jerusalem to dress up, replacing her robe of mourning and misery and putting on the splendor of glory: the cloak of justice and the headgear of glory. Her children are returning from exile, “borne aloft in glory on royal thrones.” God will see to arranging the rest of creation: mountains made low, gorges filled in, fragrant trees filling the air with their scent.

And John the Baptist is calling on the children of Israel to dress up their inner selves by undergoing a baptism of repentance, receiving God’s forgiveness of their sins, and thereby providing God a highway into their hearts, a straight path with no obstacles impeding God’s entry in glory. Then, God will dress them with salvation and fullness of life.

Paul’s words bring it home. Advent is a time to prepare for the great feast of God’s incarnate love. God, made visible in Jesus Christ, at work in us since the day we were baptized in Christ, continues to come today, bringing God’s work one step closer to completion.

Consider/Discuss

How will you “dress up” for the coming feast? What needs to be taken off? What needs to be put on?
What are you doing this Advent that invites the Lord to come in splendor? What needs to be filled in? What needs to be straightened?

Responding to the Word

God who comes, help us hear your call to prepare for you to come into our lives. May this holy season set our hearts afire with the desire to put on the garments of truth and loving kindness so your light and love may come more fully into our world.

Dec 13 2024

Dressing Up

Jerusalem is portrayed as a grieving mother. Her sorrow is for her children carried off and scattered both east and west. Since this meant the loss of any future, Jerusalem faced extinction. This is why she is clothed in the traditional garments of mourning. The prophet directs the city to “Take off your robe of mourning and misery!” Transformed by the glory of God, Jerusalem is told to stand on the heights and witness a reversal of fortune: the captives will return rejoicing; led away on foot, they will be carried back on royal thrones. The splendor that God bestows upon Jerusalem will be revealed to all the earth.

The affection that Paul has for the Philippians flows from his appreciation of their faithfulness to the righteousness that God is accomplishing in them. Although Paul brought the good news of the gospel to these people, he acknowledges that it was really God who made it take root in their hearts, and it is God who will oversee its maturation until it is brought to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. Paul prays that their mutual love will increase, and that they will be pure and blameless for the coming day of Christ.

John the Baptist is a most fascinating figure. He comes from a priestly family (see Luke 1:5), yet he is found in the desert, a place that calls to mind the wandering of the people in the wilderness as they moved out of Egyptian bondage. His activity occurred in the region of the Jordan, the gateway to the Promised Land, the very river crossed by the people as they entered the land. Thus crossing became a symbol of their entrance into a new life. All of this somehow marks John as an agent of momentous transformation. Just as both the Exodus and the return from exile involved a desert crossing, so the end-times renewal proclaimed by John begins in the desert.