Rev. James A. Wallace, C.Ss.R.

Dec 13 2024

God’s Word Made Flesh

Some friends living in Kingston, New York used to see their grandchildren only when they traveled down to Virginia or over to Connecticut. These visits were occasional, but nowhere near the frequency that doting grandparents desired. What a blessing Skype has become for them, allowing them to visit not only by voice, but by sight. Yet there is one thing better: being there in the flesh.

Today’s readings give us a glimpse into the heart of God and God’s desire to be with us “in the flesh”; they signal how great God’s love was from the start. God’s word first brought creation into being. Then God’s word entered into a relationship, first with Noah, then with Abraham, and then with Moses and the people of Israel. God’s word invited them into an intimate relationship called a covenant. And God kept calling them back again and again from infidelity into intimacy through the words of the prophets.

But all this was not enough. As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son . . . “ (1:1). God said, “Jesus.” And in the eagle-soaring words of the John’s Gospel: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son full of grace and truth.” Beyond only seeing him, the text then proclaims: “From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace.”

Consider/Discuss

What do you need this year to absorb more deeply the mystery of the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, and what it means for you?
What do you need this year to absorb more deeply the mystery of the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, and what it means for our world?
Could it be silence? Time for prayer? Talking about this with another person of faith?

Responding to the Word

God of creation, God of compassion, God of all beginnings, help us to begin anew to enter into the mystery of your Word become flesh that this event might penetrate our minds and hearts and transform our lives not only during this season, but for the coming new year of grace.

Dec 13 2024

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

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

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

God’s Passionate Love for Us

Behold our mothers: Eve, mother of all the living, and Mary, mother of the Lord and of all his disciples. These two women reflect conflicting human urges: to stretch out our hand to seize what promises to make us godlike, or to bow our heads humbly before the living God, offering ourselves in service.

The two narratives are instructive. In Genesis, after their disobedience, Adam and Eve begin a life of finger-pointing and blame, of regret and recrimination, choosing a world where Eden can no longer be entered. In today’s Gospel, after fear and confusion have given way to acceptance and assent to God’s word, Mary goes forth in joy to assist her life-bearing cousin Elizabeth.

In Romans, St. Paul complements these images with those of the old Adam and the new Adam, Christ. God’s will was set aside by the former, but embraced by the latter. While our baptism empowers us to live in Christ, this can be set aside. A choice is before us: to live as autonomous, self-centered children of Adam, or as adopted, obedient children of God in the risen Lord.

Various forces threaten to separate us from yielding to the divine plan that we be holy and blameless in God’s sight, both in our identity as church and as individual disciples of the Lord. But this feast reminds us of the power of God’s grace to transform us, just as it did a frightened young woman into the brave singer of the Magnificat, the God-bearer of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Consider/Discuss

Do you think this feast only speaks about Mary and what was done for her so she could be the mother of Jesus?
Do you see yourself as being “graced”? Are you “blessed in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in the heavens”?

Responding to the Word

Loving and generous God, you have blessed us from our beginning and destined us to give you praise and glory for all eternity. May we live lives of holiness now and come to the full enjoyment of eternal life. We ask this in the name of Jesus and through the intercession of our Mother Mary.