Urban Hermit at 3156 Doyle Street, Toledo, OH 43608-2006 US - Sundays of Advent
| Sundays of Advent |
1st Sunday of Advent (A): Be Prepared Isaiah 2:1-5—Swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, let us walk in the light of the Lord! Psalm 122: I rejoiced when I heard them say, let us go up to the house of the Lord. Romans 13:11-14—Throw off darkness, conduct yourself properly, make no provision for the desires of the flesh. Matthew 24:37-44—Stay awake! Be prepared!
As the winter days shorten, the gloomy gray skies seem to reflect the darkness in too many hearts. Our scriptures this week speak directly to the gloom of nature’s winter and the winter of devastation raining on the Middle East. First, the prophet Isaiah calls us to “walk in the light of the Lord!” God will instruct us in the ways of peace, and we will walk in those paths. We will beat our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks. “One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” Truly, this passage makes us wonder about our country. Three years ago we were engaged in incessant bombing of Afghanistan; this year we are engaged in attacks in Iraq. Truly, it makes us wonder whether our apparent thirst for revenge can be justified in any way. The message is echoed in Paul’s letter to the Romans, today’s second reading. Salvation is nearer now, Paul observes, so we must “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” The United States, our own country, engages in works of darkness. As we Christians prepare for the season of peace, commemorate the coming of the Prince of Peace, we make war, scattering missiles like so much popcorn. Paul urges us instead to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” And finally Jesus, the radical pacifist, tells us that we cannot know when the kingdom is coming, so we must stay awake. It’s not enough to bomb now and repent later, for that will be too late. It’s not enough to take revenge now and rebuild later, for that will be too late. It’s not enough to strike out in retaliation now and pick up the pieces later, for that will be too late. We must be prepared—and it is not a preparedness against terrorists that Jesus is calling us to. It is a preparedness for the coming of the Son of Man, the coming of the reign of God. We know that the only way to be prepared is to commit ourselves to a life of loving service. As we go about this week, let’s learn to make still greater progress in loving one another. Let’s engage in the quiet watchfulness that helps us to notice the oppressed and the prayerful watchfulness that impels us to action on their behalf and in tandem with them. We have 27 days, counting today, the four weeks of Advent. Let’s make this season of preparation for the coming of the Lord a bright reflection of God’s justice in the world.
1st Sunday of Advent (B): Turn to God Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2b-7—Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways! Psalm 80: Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved. 1 Corinthians 1:3-9—I give thanks to my God always on your account. Mark 13:33-37—Be watchful! Be alert! In those few moments each day when we pause to make an account of our efforts, it becomes obvious that we have not been watchful. Walking up to us, God would not have met us doing right; indeed, God would have met us "doing our own thing." Are we being and acting as the kind of Christians about whom Paul would write that he always gives thanks to God for us? Or are we something else? The glory, laud, and honor of the Feast of Christ the King have given way to the blue-violet of preparation. We have four short weeks to prepare again for the indwelling of the incarnate God in us. Yet, even as we begin this season of Advent, we understand that God is already here! Already in us, but we are not yet complete. Each year we follow this path of solemn watchfulness, hoping that the very repeating of it will eventually wear us into the mold that the potter-God has in mind. 1st Sunday of Advent (C): Our Darkest Moments
Jeremiah 33:14-16, I shall raise up a just shoot, one who does what is right and just.
Psalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10-14, God guides the humble to justice.
1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2, Overflow with love for one another; learn to make still greater progress.
Luke 21:25-28, 34-36, Stand up straight and raise your head: your redemption is at hand!
The oppressed of the earth bend, bowed to the earth before the armies of injustice that mow them down. They are the children, disease-ridden and starving, dying in their mothers’ arms. They are the young teens in sweatshops, scrabbling for pennies to help their families. They are the old, bent and crippled and rooting for sustenance in the garbage bins of the wealthy. They are the women raped as an expected side effect of war.
Stand up straight, Jesus tells them. Your redemption, your ransom, is at hand. Be on the watch, he urges them. The kingdom of God is at hand.
And where are the oppressed to look for the kingdom of God? In the overflowing love of Christians!
Our world appears just as dark today, to those deprived of justice, as the world appeared before the incarnation of Jesus Christ. For many, it’s as if Jesus was never sent, never walked the earth, never preached or healed or suffered and died, never rose from the dead.
For too many, the hope of the Paschal mystery remains shrouded in the darkness of injustice.
Yet there are glimmers of dawn. Everywhere that someone gives ear to the voice of the poor, light shines in the darkness.
A doctor speaks of retiring early to volunteer health care for poor children. Light shines in the darkness.
A librarian adopts a sixth special-needs child. Light shines in the darkness.
A trio of teens stock shelves at the food pantry. Light shines in the darkness.
A parish tithes its income to third-world charities. Light shines in the darkness.
A community leader with too many commitments already quietly befriends a retarded adult. Light shines in the darkness.
A diocese sponsors a mission in Africa. Light shines in the darkness.
An already-beleaguered grandparent welcomes the child in need. Light shines in the darkness.
We stand at the edge of Advent, our midnight-blue-purple colors reminding us of Jesus’ call to careful watchfulness. It’s not the watchfulness that races for the Tuesday flier’s bargains at the mall. It’s not the watchfulness that hoards dollars to pay for extravagant gifts. It’s not the watchfulness that checks to ensure that our gift totals are equally balanced among children or grandchildren.
As the winter days shorten, the gloomy gray skies speak of the darkness in too many hearts. As we go about this week, let’s learn to make still greater progress in loving one another. Let’s engage in the quiet watchfulness that helps us to notice the oppressed and the prayerful watchfulness that impels us to action on their behalf and in tandem with them.
We have 22 days, just over three weeks. Let’s make this season of preparation for the coming of the Lord a bright reflection of God’s justice in the world.
2nd Sunday of Advent (A): Prepare the Way of the Lord
Isaiah 11:1-10—The wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.
Psalm 72: Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever.
Romans 15:4-9—Welcome one another as Christ welcomed you.
Matthew 3:1-12—He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He will gather his wheat into his barn.
The vision of peace set before us today by the prophet Isaiah is both vivid and enticing. From the remains of the holy people of God shall spring forth the savior, the one we now know as Christ. Full of justice and faithfulness, the world will become a place of glorious peace. Even natural enemies will co-exist in peace, and the earth will be full of the knowledge of God.
In the second reading, Paul prays for this peace: “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To reach that peace, we must welcome one another as Christ welcomes us. This is a call to peace at the root of everything we do, a radical pacifism that prevents us from any violation of the rule of hospitality.
The Baptist calls on us to repent and produce good fruit as evidence of our repentance. We are to prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight the path for our God. The first step—modeled for us by “Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan” going out to John to be baptized—is the acknowledgement of our sins.
Three years ago our country engaged in the merciless bombing of Afghanistan, pretending that this was the only way to “fight” terrorism. Now we bomb Fallujah, with the same pretense. We continue to call ourselves a “Christian” nation at the same time that we lead the world farther and farther along the path of war, destruction, and devastation. It would seem that this denial of our sin is the thing we must acknowledge. To continue to call our nation’s militaristic response to terrorism justified is to destroy the very meaning of justice. It’s time to name things for what they really are. It’s time to repent.
As we continue our journey through this Advent season, let’s pray for the grace to see violence and war for what they are. Let’s pray for the courage to name them evil. Let’s ask the God of endurance and encouragement to help us think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus.
2nd Sunday of Advent (B): Here Comes God
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11—Here is your God!
Psalm 85: God, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
2 Peter 3:8-14—We await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Mark 1:1-8—Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight his paths.
Today we hear the call of the Baptizer from the desert, directing us to expect the coming of the Lord. John lived in a radically simple way, sustained by prayer and fasting and hope for the Messiah. We are, each of us, walking that same desert path.
Here is our God, coming with vindication! Injustices that we have suffered will be acknowledged and replaced by righteousness. The preparations we have made will be shown complete. The new heavens and the new earth will be ours.
We should be excited that the day draws near. In the world around us we see other kinds of excitement: pushing ahead of others, taking more than our fair share of resources, finding other people valuable only because of the things they can give us. Our children are excited from the expectation of computer games, more clothes when they already can't remember what they have in their closets, violent videos, songs with obscene lyrics, and the persistent overstimulation from television, movies, and music.
Like our children, we find ourselves tempted by the glut of stuff in our secular world. We cannot avoid the advertiser's hawking the latest "must-have" item—a faster computer, a bigger car, a more expensive neighborhood, a different wardrobe, a vacation getaway to the trendiest spot on the globe. More than 5.3 billion of the world's people earn less than $100 a year; Americans living at the poverty level are wealthy beyond the wildest imaginations of these anawim of modern times.
We are not the first of God's people to stray. The Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours for the First Sunday of Advent gives us Isaiah's first chapter, where God commands the ancient Israelites to "set things right." "Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow." The words ring across the millennia to us, still apt.
So this Advent time of preparation invites us to examine the way we are walking through our lives and to repent and change the things that do not lead to the coming of the Lord. If the Messiah is to be born again in us, we must be ready.
2nd Sunday of Advent (C): Shout into the Silence
Baruch 5:1-9—You will be named by God forever, the peace of justice.
Psalm 126:1-6—God has done great things for us; we are filled with joy!
Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11—May your love increase ever more and more.
Luke 3:1-4—A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord!”
Do you ever feel like a “voice of one crying out in the desert?” All alone, crying out the message of God’s presence, unheard, unheeded? Like Isaiah, like John the Baptizer, like Paul to the Philippians, do you speak out and live out the Word of God to a world that turns a deaf ear?
So much of what we try to do as Christians seems to be frustrated. Christian parents live good lives and rear their children in God’s ways, yet their children seem to pay them no mind. Christian workers apply themselves to the job, treat their co-workers and employers with respect, and model just behavior, yet their voices are muted by the surrounding culture of mass consumerism and self-aggrandizement.
It’s as if we’re shouting into the wind, the latest in a long line of prophets who struggle to purify themselves and let the Word of God live in them.
It’s fitting that this second Sunday of Advent precedes two great feasts of Mary, the Immaculate Conception tomorrow and Our Lady of Guadalupe coming up on Friday. The little we hear about Mary in the scriptures pictures her as another voice in the desert. With the other Jews of her time, she waited for the Messiah. She married and gave birth, and she watched her child grow into a man she did not understand, then she mourned as he was executed as a criminal.
Mary’s song, the great Magnificat in praise of God’s lifting up the lowly, was another voice crying out in the wilderness. Who heard her? Who responded? God. Elizabeth. John. Joseph. Still, she continued to sing the song throughout her life, and we know that, at her death, few had heard her or her son.
Even now, how many listen to the Word? The Good News is still good news. And today’s readings hold for us the promise that those who continue to cry out in the desert, those who bear the Word of God in spite of hardship, will be named by God forever. We will come to dwell in the place where the peace of justice reigns!
God has indeed done great things for us. Let us be filled with joy!
3rd Sunday of Advent (A): Blessed is the One Who Takes No Offense at Me
Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10—Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, who comes with vindication, who comes to save you.
Psalm 146: Lord, come and save us.
James 5:7-10—Be patient. Do not complain about one another.
Matthew 11:2-11—Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.
Today’s readings are full of advice for us, capped by a blessing for the one who takes no offense at Jesus. They prompt us to explore the question of why someone would take offense at the Savior.
Here is our God, who comes with vindication, who comes to save us. Why would anyone take offense?
Here is our God, who exhorts us to be patient and to refrain from complaining about one another. Why would anyone take offense?
Here is our God, who is the one to come, who opens the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, who strengthens the legs of the lame, who eases the disease of the ill, who returns the dead to life, who proclaims good news to the poor. Why would anyone take offense?
Some years ago my 7th grade students were tapped to provide the music for the Mass for the feast of St. Nicholas. With voices and drums and rattles and tambourines the 23 adolescents praised God with vigor, leading the 150 other students in the school in song and prayer. It was a stunning contrast with the normal Eurocentric music ministry of the parish but well-suited to the predominately African-American Catholic school.
Yet voices were raised in protest. Complaints were heard about the spirited beat and the number of verses that were sung, about the occasional off-key rendition by the students, about a mispronounced word in the reading.
The liturgical experience was, for most of the students, an opening of eyes and ears. It was a return to life as they understand it in their own ethnic idiom. It was good news that they were included in the weekly celebration in a significant way.
Just as some have taken offense at these students’ music ministry, so the synagogue leaders of Jesus’ time took offense at his ministry. Things have not changed.
As we go about this week, let’s look at the complaints we make about others and test them to see if we are not taking offense at the good others do. And when we find that we are indeed criticizing the good works of others, let’s ask ourselves why we are doing that.
3rd Sunday of Advent (B): Countercultural Voice in the Wilderness
Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11—The spirit of God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God.
Response: Isaiah 61:10: My soul rejoices in my God. Luke 1:46: My being proclaims the greatness of God.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24—Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.
John 1:6-8, 19-28—I am 'the voice of one crying out in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said.
I must admit that I don't watch much television. I don't subscribe to a cable network, and I don't know the popular—or even the unpopular—shows this year. So it was a bit of a culture shock for me when I visited my older brother and found myself watching a show called "Greed" with him and his family. As my niece explained, a number of currently popular offerings feature people being given the opportunity to prove themselves unfaithful, untrustworthy, greedy, or just plain vicious to other contestants on these "reality" programs. Perhaps what astonished me most was that this kind of offering is considered entertaining by many Americans.
Today's first reading, the familiar passage from Isaiah that Jesus later will quote in his inaugural address in the synagogue at Nazareth, presents a diametrically opposite picture from the one the culture presents us. The spirit of God empowers us to bring glad tidings to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives and release to prisoners…and so Paul would have us rejoice always in this mission. We are to pray without ceasing, and it would take a stretch of the imagination to think that we are to pray for wealth for ourselves or a "terminator" status against our opponents on a game show.
Indeed, a few hours in front of a television set and all Christians will feel as if we are the voice of one crying out in the wilderness to make God's way straight. So where shall we start? We must take Paul's advice to rejoice and pray, remembering that we stand in the shoes of the prophets who have preceded us. Always countercultural, always on the edge, the prophetic voice is needed more than ever these days. We won't be popular, and we won't be wealthy, but we will be practicing openness to the spirit of God.
As we go about this week, let's watch the way we interact with the culture around us. When we find the good and holy reflected in it, let's rejoice. When we find the evil and unholy reflected in it, let's cry out.
3rd Sunday of Advent (C): Rejoice! The Lord Is Near!
Zephaniah 3:14-18—Be not discouraged!
Response: Isaiah 12:2-6—God is our savior!
Philippians 4:4-7—Have no anxiety!
Luke 3:10-18—One mightier than I will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire!
Imagine that you’ve just won the lottery.
Or, imagine that you’ve just been elected President.
Imagine that the love of your life has just said “I do!”
Imagine that everything you have ever and could ever want is happening right now.
What great joy! I’d be dancing—at least jumping up and down—and singing, and smiling so widely that my cheeks would hurt.
That is the joy, and even greater, about which Zephaniah prophesies in today’s first reading. Fear not, he says. Be not discouraged!
And what is the source of this courage? God is in our midst. Even more, God will rejoice over us with gladness. God will sing joyfully, as one sings at festivals! Just think of that: God will sing because of us!
Our response is confident fearlessness. Indeed, God is our savior!
Paul exhorts the Philippians to rejoice, calling them to perseverance in faith. “Your kindness should be known to all,” he tells them. And he adds good advice for the frenetic holiday shoppers, “Have no anxiety at all.”
In today’s Gospel Luke reports that John, when the crowds come out to be baptized, chastises them, calling them a “brood of vipers.” The people are moved to repentance, and they ask him what to do. The advice he gives requires significant changes in their habits.
First he tells them to give away everything they do not need. If they own two cloaks, they are to give one to someone who has no cloak. If they have extra food, they are to give it to someone who has none.
What are we to do with that advice? Perhaps the first stop will be our closets and pantries, looking for those extras that we do not really need and bundling them up to take to our parish’s St. Vincent de Paul Society. But our next stop should be under the Christmas tree, where the brightly wrapped packages, for many adults, contain luxury items and, for many children, contain expensive toys and games. The whole question of how we celebrate Jesus’ birth with gifts for others, symbolizing God’s gift of Jesus to us, is one that needs to be addressed earlier than December 17. Still, if we reflect carefully on our habits this year, we will be better able to shape the ways in which we celebrate next year.
There’s more. The Baptist tells the tax collectors to “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” Our self-satisfaction at having other work besides tax collecting fades when we see the principle beneath that exhortation. We are called to honesty in all our dealings. Too often in the United States these days that old-fashioned kind of basic morality is labeled as stupidity. In a Catholic elementary school religion class last week, the discussion turned to the question of cashier errors in the checkout line, and only one of ten students said they would tell the clerk about a mistake and return the money. The others believed that people have a right to whatever comes their way, regardless of who suffers.
And there’s even more. The Baptist tells soldiers not to practice extortion, not to falsely accuse anyone, and to be satisfied with their wages. Translated into present-day society, this is an exhortation against the abuse of power. No matter what power it is we have--whether it be the military power of ancient Rome or the power of family, parents, employers, church leaders, or friends—we are not to intimidate people into doing our will. We are not to force people to pay to be kept in our good graces. No matter what the circumstance, we are to give people the benefit of the doubt, not speculating about possible evil motives when we lack knowledge of the facts in the situation. The insults hurled about the airwaves these days come to mind as targets for this call of the Baptist, but other examples abound in our daily lives. Finally, no matter how much or how little we earn, we are to be satisfied with it. We are to spend our energy in repentance and good works, not in scrabbling for more power and more money.
And the reward for this is great. As Paul puts it, “…the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” If we yearn for that peace, we have only to turn ourselves to God. We need to start the minute-by-minute re-programming of our thoughts and habits to conform to the destiny we desire.
When the savior comes, the Baptist tells us, we need to be ready. And the way to be ready is Jubilee justice: the sharing with the needy, fairness in relationships and interactions, a morality of honesty and fairness and concern for others that seeps in and penetrates our most basic existence.
For it is only in the ordinary, everyday living of grace-filled moments that we encounter the God who saves us. Our task is to string those moments together, like popcorn on the garland that decorates the tree, until they form a solid fabric of joy. Then we will put on the peace that surpasses all understanding. Then we will be ready to greet the Lord!
Rejoice! Jesus is near!
4th Sunday of Advent (A): God-with-Us
Isaiah 7:10-14—Is it not enough for you to weary people? Must you also weary God?
Psalm 24: Let the Lord enter; he is king of glory.
Romans 1:1-7—Through Christ we have received the grace of apostleship.
Matthew 1:18-24—They shall name him Emmanuel, which means ”God is with us.”
The normal wintry blasts to which we are accustomed have not yet come, so this Advent, with its unseasonably warm weather, has lulled us to a sense of timelessness. But the time is near, and indeed it seems as though we are wearying God with our complacency, our business-as-usual lives in spite of the signs around us.
As Paul writes to the Romans, we have received the grace of apostleship. We are sent. We are the ones God has chosen to receive the presence of Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” yet we fail again and again to recognize the sign God sends.
And God does send the sign, over and over: the destruction of war, the trust of a child, the blossom in winter. Our original selfishness keeps us from seeing what we need to see: God is here, already here, among us. Let us reverence the presence of God, everywhere: in the land, in the air, in the lives of those with whom we share life.
As we walk this final week of Advent to the growing light of Christmas, let us pray for the grace to open our eyes to the signs God sends.
4th Sunday of Advent (B): Already Here!
2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16—I will fix a place for my people Israel; I will plant them so that they may dwell in their place without further disturbance.
Psalm 89: For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Romans 16:25-27—To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be glory forever and ever.
Luke 1:26-38—Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you!
God's promise to Israel echoes through today's readings: forever, forever and ever, forever, no end! The book of Samuel relates God's promise to David and Luke's annunciation story foretells the birth of the Messiah, while Paul's letter to the Romans sings high praise to the God who has wrought our salvation through Jesus Christ.
Our own experience of the world, though, is not a "forever" experience. Indeed, it's an experience of fleeting friendships, dashed hopes, unfulfilled dreams, dying ancestors…and now, in this latest darkness, the bright promises of Vatican II being dismantled as we watch helplessly from a distance. Just when the breath of new life was beginning to rush through the windows, we found ourselves embroiled in controversy over clergy cover-ups, and the official response to the problem has been return to a pre-Vatican conformity. The American Bishops, as reported in the latest NCR, continue the process of closing out lay participation in an obvious return to the pre-Vatican II imitation of a rubber stamp for rigid orthodoxy.
Listening around town this week I heard various voices: the hushed sharing of the story of a church worker who left an executive position after 20 years to take a deanery job, thinking it would be a promotion as well as an opportunity to serve, only to find her new job cut out of the budget a week later; the bitter observation of a colleague in the Theology Department that we have seven sacraments for men and six for women; the angry report of a sister quoting Fr. Robert Taft, S.J., saying "If you're aren't going to ordain them, don't baptize them!" And then the report on National Public Radio about the Middle East tribal cultures that require families to kill their women—mothers, wives, sisters, daughters—if they are returned by kidnappers who have raped them, all in order to save the "honor" of the men in the family.
In all the turmoil it's hard to remember that the kingdom of God is within us. It's hard to remember that we have been planted in a place where we cannot be disturbed. It's hard to remember that the promise has been fulfilled when so much injustice takes place in our church and in our world. As we go about this week, let's continue our preparation for the Christmas celebration in a two-fold manner: by holding fast to our prophetic call for justice and by paring away those ideas and practices that hide the promise. God is already here!
4th Sunday of Advent (C): Fulfillment
Micah 5:1-4—He shall be peace.
Psalm 80:2-4, 15-16, 18-19—Give us new life, and we will call upon your name.
Hebrews 10:5-10—Behold, I come to do your will, O God.
Luke 1:39-45—Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.
Throughout these weeks of growing darkness, each of us has made our Advent preparation for the coming of Christ among us, individually and as a people.
We’ve had sufficient notice. On top of that, the weather has cooperated with a bit of snow to allow our outside obligations to be replaced with time for reflection and prayer. Now, our time is about to be fulfilled, and the savior is to be born again.
What place have we made for him? Have we believed that what was spoken by the Lord would be fulfilled in us? Have we therefore made ready a clean and pleasant place, a place where he may “be peace” in the world? Or have we succumbed to the temptations of the world?
The answer, for each of us, is in our hearts and in our homes and in our workplaces. Take a look: what do you see?
Do you find a joyful heart, warmed by weeks of thoughtfulness toward others? Do you find a happy heart, inspirited with the love that comes from giving? Or do you find a frenetic heart, anxious over the money and the time you’ve spent on passing fancies?
Some days it’s really hard to walk peacefully in the midst of the storm of life. Whiny children, angry adults, harsh weather, and the incessant battering of commercialism follow us everywhere we go.
Shall the savior be peace to me on Christmas morning? Will I place myself in God’s presence, singing joyfully with the choirs of angels and my fellow parishioners? Or will I sit woefully staring at mounds of rumpled wrapping paper, struggling to block out the ads for after-Christmas sales, and wondering how it all got away from me so quickly?
There’s still time: Believe that what was spoken to us by God has been fulfilled! The savior comes, in the ordinary passage of time, through the people and in the time we have been given. We have only to stop, just one moment at a time, and listen. Let us welcome him into our hearts.
