Dec 31: Anointed by the Holy One

Raffaello Sanzio: La Disputa (detail)
Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican, 1510-11

The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas

Reading I: 1 Jn 2:18-21

But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and you know that no lie comes from the truth (NRSV, 1 Jn 2:20-21).

Father, down through the centuries up until the present time, from Samuel’s anointing of Saul with oil, kings and even queens dedicated to you have been anointed. Priests too are anointed to fulfill their office as were Aaron and his sons. Prophets likewise are anointed if only by their mission from you, Lord. In time your people began to look forward to the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One, to deliver them from the evils that oppressed them. In Mark’s gospel, at the beginning of his public ministry, after he had been baptized by John, Jesus experienced himself as anointed by the Holy Spirit whom he saw descend upon him in the form of a dove. He also heard your voice from heaven, Father: "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." In later accounts, Lord, John and the crowd also experienced this anointing of Jesus.

As your Son Jesus was thus anointed by your Holy Spirit to be priest, prophet and king, so, as we share your life through Jesus,the Word made flesh, and the mission that you entrusted to him to announce the coming of your kingdom, we also are solemnly anointed with oil at our baptism. We too are anointed priest, prophet and king. Your one indivisible act that creates and saves, Lord, that baptizes us into your life and anoints us, also bestows your life upon us and anoints us even from the womb.

It is from the womb, that first moment of our existence, that your Holy Spirit breathes the Word upon us, the Word that you send down to brings us your life and your knowledge. Father, as your act is one (it is your Being itself) so also your revelation is one, your revelation that is spoken once and for all at every moment to us.

That is why your servant, the author of the first letter of John, reminds us that we have knowledge and that we know the truth. Your truth is spoken to us by the Word in the Holy Spirit from our first moment of life in the womb. As every moment for us is a challenge to grow in your divine life, every moment is an opportunity to increase our understanding of the truth that has been revealed to us once and for all.

Father, as we thank you for the gift of your divine life, we are grateful as well for the knowledge which that life brings. Help us always to deepen our understanding of who you are and what you require of us, who with Jesus are your beloved daughters and sons.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 30: To Be Human Is To Grow

El Greco: Saint Joseph and the Christ Child
Chapel of San José, Toledo, 1597-99

The Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas

Gospel: Lk 2:36-40

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor (NRSV, Lk 2:40).

How wonderful, Lord God, that your Word, God from God, should become a human being, that the Word, without giving up his divinity, should take upon himself a human body. And not just the appearance of humanity, a human body worn as a shell, as some have claimed.

Lord God, I struggle every day to understand you more, to understand the Word that is spoken in the depth of my being, once and for all but at every moment. Finally I accept that you are, that you are my Father, that you created me and give me a share in your life through the Word in the Holy Spirit. I accept as well that you challenge me through the Word spoken within me to grow constantly in your life by saying “yes” to the Word at every moment. I accept also that, when I sin and try to live my own life without you, your Word remains ever present to me in every moment summoning me to repentance, offering me once again to live in you if only I would say “yes” again. I accept that you love me and invite me to love you in return and to love all of my sisters and brothers in you.

But who you are, and who your Word is, and who your Holy Spirit is, are truths, really just truth, Lord, because you are always one, in which I grow ever so slowly. What I know about you, Lord, and what you require me to do, how I am to live out my life, is and never will be complete because only your truth is absolute. Truth for the creature only shares in your truth and I can only grow in it as I can also only grow in your life.

But now, since the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, since the coming of the Word into the world in the flesh, Lord God, you have become a God that could be seen and heard and touched. As I struggle to understand more about you, Lord, I can continue to examine your footprints that are the world you have created and I can continue to look within myself to find you closer to me than I am to myself, but now I have a teacher who is the Lord Jesus, one of us yet God himself, to show the way. Jesus is not like other teachers who can all eventually be surpassed because he is the one teacher whose truth cannot be exhausted.

As I strain to understand to a greater extent, moving ahead with such difficulty, I am more than encouraged to realize that during his earthly life that Jesus also struggled as I do. As one of us, he too had to learn gradually to come to a fuller understanding of his identity and the mission entrusted to him by you, Lord, his Father. It was only in his resurrection that all became clear even to him and, with a final understanding of his godhead, he was able to communicate that truth to his apostles.

Father in heaven, as I endeavor with such great effort to be your obedient son and to grow in your life and the knowledge of who you are, I am thankful for the companionship of your Son, the Word who became one of us and dwells within me in the Spirit, comforting me and encouraging me to make constant progress as he did when he walked the paths of this world. All human life passes by physical death which threatens to be the end of it all. Now, with the Lord Jesus, I have a brother to guide me, one who also had to make the leap of faith that is death. He promises me that, rather than the final end, it can be, for the believer, an hour of glory passing to eternal life.

Alleluia. Amen.

Dec 29: The Presentation in the Temple

Andrea Mantegna: The Presentation in the Temple
Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 1460

The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas

Gospel: Lk 2:22-35

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel (NRSV, Lk 2:29-32).”

Father in heaven, your evangelist Luke records how, in the resurrection, Jesus opened the minds of his apostles to understand what had been written about him in the scripture. It was only then that the apostles realized that the Lord Jesus was the fulfillment of all things. They accepted, Father, that you not only raised Jesus from the dead but that you exalted him by making him both Lord and Messiah. But your newly born Church could not long rest in that partial understanding. If, Lord, you glorified Jesus in his resurrection, that must have been true also of his entire public ministry, even beginning from his baptism by John. Mark, the first evangelist, makes this clear in the opening of his gospel: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

But it was argued, if Jesus is Lord, Messiah and Son, not only from his resurrection, but also from his baptism, he must as well be Messiah and Son even from the beginning, his conception and his birth. This, Lord God, is what we read in the next two gospels, Luke and Matthew. Thus exclaimed your servant, Simeon, who believed that he would live to see the Messiah as promised him by your Holy Spirit: “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples.”

But the story of our salvation, Lord, does not finally have its origin merely in the conception and birth of Jesus. John’s gospel, the last to be written, acknowledges that Jesus had his beginning with you, Lord God, from eternity, that he is your Word through whom everything is created, your Word made flesh, your only begotten Son.

Lord God, your servant, Simeon, in the power of the Holy Spirit, recognized in Jesus the salvation of all peoples. Thank you, Lord God, for your revealing to us the coming to live in our midst of your Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, your only begotten son, who is God from God, light from Light, true God from true God. May we always celebrate, Lord God, the presence of your Word in the creation of all things, especially in the creation of each and every one of us, in whatever time and place, and the bestowing on us all a share in your divine life. We thank you so much, Father, for the gift of your Word, who challenges all of us, at every moment, to grow in your life and who always remains present to us, however we may turn away from you in sin, always calling us to turn back and accept your forgiveness that brings a renewal of your life within us.

Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen

Dec 28: The Massacre of the Holy Innocents

Fra Angelico: The Massacre of the Innocents
Museo di San Marco, Florence, 1450

Feast of the Holy Innocents, martyrs

Gospel: Mt 2:13-18

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more (NRSV, Mt 2:18).”


Father, we listen to the proclamation of Matthew’s gospel for the Feast of the Holy Innocents and outrage surges up within our hearts. It brings immediately to mind the plight of so many of today’s children in the Sudan and elsewhere in the world, deprived of family, sustenance and even life. So many children suffering from HIV/AIDS. There is also the great contemporary moral problem of the cutting off of human life within the womb for which many also use the word massacre. The homilist for today’s liturgy might take the occasion to rally an activist response to these pressing ethical issues. They are a gathering cry to action on our part.

But such would not be Matthew’s intent, Lord, nor would it be that of Jesus in his public preaching. Both are primarily concerned with recognizing and accepting you, Lord, as the one who saves in all of life's situations. There is nothing that we can accomplish but that it comes from you.

I always remember the seemingly harsh words which the Lord Jesus spoke to the would-be disciple who wanted to follow Jesus but who would first lay to rest his father: "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

The story of the massacre of the innocents in Matthew, Lord, only takes up one verse but it has scarred the collective consciousness of believers. The crime is not mentioned in any other document. Even the historian Flavius Josephus who despised Herod ignores it. Can it be, Lord, that Matthew invents the incident and uses it to shock-teach us?

Matthew wants to make it clear to us that Jesus is the new Moses. Moses also, in his birth story, miraculously escapes death in the massacre of the Hebrew children perpetrated by Pharaoh. Moses is saved by being placed in a basket to let float on the Nile and is rescued by Pharoah’s daughter. This part of Moses’ story, we cannot forget, Lord, is also told of Sargon, saved by a shepherd out of a similar basket that was let float on the Euphrates. Sargon goes on to become king of Akkad. We remember, Lord, that we are in the realm of birth stories which in the ancient Near East were often highly elaborated and were meant primarily to instruct.

Matthew, in writing of Herod’s massacre, quotes you, Father, speaking through your prophet Jeremiah of the long dead Rachel weeping for her children, actually her descendants who were killed or taken into captivity.

But, Lord, having told us of Rachel’s weeping, you immediately go on, through Jeremiah, to give us a message of hope, at least as Jeremiah can best understand it, still limited as it is to the land as his vision for the people: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work, they shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, your children shall come back to their own country.”

Jesus knows better than to speak of the land. When he chides the would-be disciple who wants first to bury his father, Jesus is telling him and us, that there is one reality that always comes first and it is not the land. It is your kingdom, Lord, which has its final clear expression in Jesus’ own resurrection, and in ours as well.

Matthew speaks of dark things, the killing of infants. Then he gives us a real foundation of hope for the future: the holy family is delivered from danger, Lord, through the message of your angel in a dream.

We understand well now, through the mystery of Jesus, that we are delivered from everything that threatens us, however ominous, by your one saving act, Father, present in every time and place, which is the sharing of your divine life with us if only we would accept it. This gift gives us real hope in every situation. It enables us to come through all of the vicissitudes of this life as victors, no matter how harsh they may be, and it brings us resurrection here in this life and in the world to come.

Jeremiah finally spoke a message of hope for Rachel and her children, even if it was limited to this world. Jesus and Matthew’s gospel speak a message of hope anchored in the world to come but also bursting forth into this world.

Once we choose your kingdom, Lord, we have no other option but to bury our dead father . . . and we have no other option but to come to the aid of helpless children wherever they may be and in whatever condition. As we choose you first, Lord God, you then send us to share your life and your love with all of our sisters and brothers in need.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Dec 27: The Empty Tomb

Christoph Weigel: The Empty Tomb
Biblia ectypa: Bildnussen aus Heiliger Schrifft Alt und Neuen Testaments, 1695

Gospel: Jn 20:1a and 2-8
Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist

Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed (NRSV, Jn 20:8).

Father, we know well that you are unchanging, that you just are. But we your children do change. We have a story each one of us and your people taken together have a history. Much of our individual lives, Lord, and much of our history as your people has been in coming to know you better and to respond more fully to your gift of yourself to us.

Your presence in our lives, Lord, because you are unchanging, is constant. Like your being itself it just is, always the same, an expression of your ever-present now. Not only do we, your created children, however, change in every moment, but there even seems to be certain moments for us, in our individual lives and our history, that are decisive.

For the disciples of Jesus, and indeed for all of us who have come after them, such a decisive moment occurred early in the morning on the first day of the week following the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Holy women, visiting Jesus’ tomb, discovered it to be empty. The sequence of events and the details of exactly what happened are not clear. Each of your evangelists, Lord, records the occurrence with significant variations. But all agree: there was at first confusion which then gave way to new understanding and belief. Appearances of Jesus, not restored to life, but resurrected into a new life, appearances that were made from the world to come, confirmed what the disciples had concluded from the empty tomb.

Lord, you meet us all in the first moment of our existence in the womb and in every moment after that but your presence, the Word that you speak, is not easily grasped and understood. Many persons go through their whole lives searching for you without ever realizing that you are ever there, if only they would look within themselves and listen more carefully. Oh, so many, many embrace the gift of your life that is your Word and then live it out intensely, yet with no conscious knowledge of who you are.

Still, there are moments in our individual lives and in the lives of the people when suddenly it becomes clearer if still not fully understood. The experience of your people coming out of slavery in Egypt and their dramatic encounter with you at Mt. Sinai is one of these moments. Even before Exodus, Abraham’s decisive experience which led him to abandon his homeland in search of you is another.

The experience of the empty tomb on Easter morning and the subsequent resurrection appearances of Jesus, more than any other series of events in the history of salvation, radically changed our understanding of you, Lord, and our relationship with you.

From Exodus and Mt. Sinai on, we had realized that you are one God, that you care for your people, that you challenge us to lead lives of love in obedience to you, that you are calling us to a future destiny.

But from Easter morning on, we came to a much deeper understanding. We learned that you not only care for us, you share your very life with us; that you love us so much that you have become one of us, your Word has become a human being; that our destiny is not the land at all, as had been thought, but life with you forever in the world to come. And we have realized that all who have ever lived, in every time and place, are called to this destiny.

Father, It did not take Peter and John long to conclude that Jesus had not really been taken from them by death, that he was still with them more powerfully present than ever before. They realized that he is truly Messiah, that he is your Son and that his Holy Spirit, your Spirit, had been poured out on humankind.

Father, we thank you for the gift of the Church, the gathering of those who believe and who wait, the Church which came into existence around the empty tomb, because it is the Church, in its preaching and worship, that announces your Word to us and to the world. And we know that this Word is true, because once having heard it spoken, turning inward, we finally recognize that it has in fact been taught to us, in the Spirit, from the beginning.

Alleluia. Amen.

Dec 26: Out of Egypt I Have Called My Son

Jörg Ratgeb: The Flight into Egypt
Carmelite Convent, Frankfort, 1515-21

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

Gospel: Mt 2:13-15, 19-23

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son (NRSV, Mt 2:14-15).”

Father in heaven, our first conscious experience of you as one God, as a God who cares for his people, as a God who challenges his people to love one another, is when the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt. Their plight, as they remember it, was onerous. They were held captive in a foreign land, subjected to forced labor and worse. In their memory, even their future as a people was threatened by infanticide. Nearly overcome by their troubles, Lord, they heard you speaking to them, more clearly than any people before them, and realized that they were not alone. It was not only comfort that you brought them. They became aware of you as a God who empowers his people. You were actually calling them forth out of their oppressive situation into freedom.

Today we acknowledge that you speak your one Word to all of us in the depth of our being at every moment. The Hebrews remember a privileged moment, after their escape from subjugation in Egypt, when they were especially aware of your presence. It took place in a mountain storm in the Sinai. There they sensed that they had become your covenanted people, bound by your law, and called to a future of promise in the land.

And so they went forth toward their destiny, not always accepting of the challenges that you laid upon them, often murmuring and frequently rebellious. Still you never abandoned them in spite of their sinfulness. They looked to Moses to represent you to them, not yet realizing that you speak directly to us all.

Moses died before reaching the land. Was it because even he had questioned you, Father, or was it perhaps because finally the land was not really the destiny to which you called your people?

In the incarnation of your Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, we finally have come to understand that you summon us forth to a destiny far greater than the land. We are called to share eternal life with you, a destiny to be fulfilled, not here, certainly not in the land, but in the world to come, still a destiny that begins even here in this life.

Jesus is truly a new and absolute Moses for all peoples. He is Moses and beyond.

The Lord Jesus, unlike Moses, does not claim merely to represent you, Father, to us and us to you. In Jesus we all have direct and immediate access to you.

Moses did his best to show the people the way into their destiny. Jesus, on the other hand, is himself the Way, and the Truth and the Life. We come to you, Father, in him.

Lord, for the writer of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is the new David but also the new Moses. We can easily find Moses in the way in which Matthew casts the story of Jesus who, for Matthew, is born into a politically oppressive social situation in which his very life is threatened from the beginning. Here too we encounter a tale of infanticide as the Hebrews remember from their experience in Egypt. Here to, Lord, you are present to call Joseph and the holy family out of danger into freedom. You lead then curiously enough back into Egypt so that, of course, like Moses and the people, Jesus may come up out of Egypt. Out of Egypt I have called my son.

Father, from the Hebrews’ first acknowledged encounter with you, and certainly as fulfilled in the Lord Jesus, we have continued to be aware of you as always calling us forth. Every situation in which we find ourselves has its own oppression and is always impoverished as concerns the future with you forever to which you summon us.

Because of the evil which we do, and with which we have surrounded ourselves, we are truly an alienated people living in subjugation in a foreign land. Call us to freedom, Father, as you always do. Empower us to shake off the chains of sin which hold us down, the evil that we perpetrate upon one another. Strengthen us in the struggle against all forms of injustice and violence in this world to prepare us for our true future in the world to come. Lord, you who recognize us as your daughters and sons, call us out of Egypt.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Dec 25: In the Beginning was the Word

Jacopo Torriti: The Creation of the World
Upper Basilica, San Francesco, Assisi, c. 1290

Mass of the Nativity of our Lord during the Day

Gospel: Jn 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people (NRSV, Jn 1:1-4).


Lord God, how many times as a youth did I follow along in my missal the opening verses of John’s gospel as the priest recited them at the end of Mass after the blessing? How many times did I just read them, surely well over a thousand, without ever really paying any attention?

I cannot remember the precise occasion but there came a moment when suddenly it all became clear, or at least clearer. What the priest recited in Latin quietly, I had indeed followed along in English so many hundreds of times but, on a certain occasion, I realized that I had actually heard it all many, many other times. In fact, as I focused my attention, as I turned inward upon myself, I became aware that what these verses say was in fact heard at every single moment from the very beginning. The truths that John lays out in the opening verses of his gospel are actually defining elements of my life. They are central to who I am, central to the life of every human being.

What I came to understand, Lord, was that, as you created the universe through your only begotten Son, your Word spoken, once and for all, so also you created me. In response to this same eternally spoken Word heard in my mother’s womb, I was enabled, in the power of the Spirit, in a manner beyond language and reasoning, to say “yes.” I thus accepted for myself that life which is your own and which has become for me, and all who are human, the light of all peoples. Your Word continues to speak to me at every moment challenging me to grow in your life. When I sin and turn away from you, your Word never abandons me but, always pressing in upon me, challenges me to repent and accept forgiveness.

How wonderful, Lord, that your Word through whom everything is created, through whom I have been and continued to be created, that this same Word, your only begotten Son, has become one of us. The Word has become flesh and lived among us. Father, you not only share your life with us through your Word; your Word, without surrendering his divinity, has taken upon himself a physical body and become a human being.

Help us all, Lord, to lead lives worthy of your great love for us and the destiny to which you call us.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 25: Prayer in the Silence of the Moment

Hugo van der Goes: The Portinari Triptych (detail)
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, 1476-79

Mass of the Nativity of our Lord at Dawn

Gospel: Lk 2:15-20

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart (NRSV, Lk 2:19).

Lord God, your evangelist Luke tells us that Mary listened to the wonderful message that the shepherds had heard from the angel, that a savior had been born who was Messiah and Lord. Then after they left, she kept these words and reflected upon them.

Father, we, have first met you in the womb when you called us into existence, and every moment after that as you summon us always to grow in your life. In each moment you speak to us your one, eternal Word. A Word, however, that is not spoken in the language of this world. Most of us have first heard stories about you at our mother’s knee. The stories have been repeated by others, by priests and teachers. The stories are all around us, repeated over and over, with this emphasis or that, never quite the same. How do we make sense of it all for our lives? We come to understand and we grow in that understanding, Lord, like Mary, by pondering it in our hearts.

Every person who has ever claimed to know you, Lord, has turned to you in prayer. There are different ways of praying. We sing hymns. We recite alone or together certain texts that have earned special respect over the years. We sometimes pray using words that come to us spontaneously.

In Jesus we have learned that it was never necessary for a designated one to go apart to plead for us, perhaps offering gifts, and then to return with your favor for us. No, in Jesus we have learned that all of us have direct access to you through him, the Word, as he shares your life with us. It is thus that the followers of Jesus gather together in prayer to listen to the spoken Word and to celebrate your immediate presence among us under tangible signs. These signs, Lord, not only speak of your one, saving act but they are that saving act made visible.

Father, thus it is that our encounter with you in prayer has many forms. It makes use of externals, words, singing, ceremonial rituals, but prayer is only prayer when it is held together by a rich, interior conversation with you, Lord, a conversation that can go beyond language and reasoning. That is because both language and reasoning are of this world and conversation with you, Lord, is a conversation carried out in your Holy Spirit.

In the old idea of priest, before many of us recognized Jesus as the new high priest, it seemed necessary for one of us to go apart. In Jesus we have learned that there is never any going apart because even interior prayer, and especially interior prayer, brings us to you, Lord, and to your life which you share with all who will accept it from you. When I turn inward to listen to your eternal Word, spoken once and for all, I am there with all of my sisters and brothers who hear that same one Word and share the same one life, all of us, one with the other, in the Spirit. I am never closer to you, Lord, and to all of my sisters and brothers who share your life than when I turn inward in prayer.

Mary pondered the words she had heard in her heart. Help us, Lord, also not always to be so busy even in our praying but to pause and listen and reflect on all that you are calling us to do in our love for one another as we “yes” once more to you in the silence of the moment.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 25: Emmanuel: God with Us

Antoine Pesne: The Birth of Christ
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, 1745

Mass of the Nativity of our Lord at Midnight

Reading I: Is 9:1-6

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-- on them light has shined (NRSV, Is 9:2).

Tonight, Lord, we celebrate a great mystery. In the dark and cold of a desert night, in the recesses of a shepherd’s cave, a child is born to a new mother barely a woman. Her husband, alone, is there to attend her. The sole eventual witnesses of this event, Luke tells us, are impoverished herdsmen pasturing their sheep on the nearby hills. The times are bad. The people live under the double oppression of foreign occupation and a puppet ruler who is not really their own. But still this birth is a marvelous event, enough to make the angels in heaven sing.

The carrying of every human child is an occurrence that is filled with wonder. Your Son, in each instance, is sent down from on high into the darkness of a woman’s womb and you speak your holy Word, calling another human being into existence. In the power of the Spirit that which was already human life responds with a “yes” that is truly glorious as another human being now sharing in your own divine life comes into existence. How the angels sing with joy: Gloria in excelsis Dei.

Human existence after birth, in the best of times, is not easy. The sin of the world, that complex web of the totality of evil that has ever been committed on earth, surrounds us all, struggling, as something seemingly alive itself, to ensnare us. It brings confusion and temptation into every human life and eventually we collapse under its enticements. Turning against sister and brother we too sin and weave our own additional strands to the treacherous trap.

In the midst of all of life’s vicissitudes, Lord, your Word never abandons us no matter how much we may turn away from you, no matter how much we may surrender ourselves to evil. You are always there in your eternally spoken Word revealing yourself to us once and for all and summoning us to repentance and forgiveness in your Holy Spirit. In every instance, Lord, you offer us further growth in the divine life first breathed into us in the womb.

But now, since that mysterious occurrence in a cave two thousand years ago, your Word is not only pressing in upon us at every moment offering us your life. That very Word, eternally spoken once and for all, has taken upon himself a human body. He has become one of us, not only in the Spirit to strengthen us that we might confront life’s problems but also to be there, as one of us, to stand against every difficulty side by side with us. The Word has become a human being ready even to undergo death with us to show us that we have nothing to fear, that death can really be for us, as well, an “hour of glory.”

How we rejoice, Father, this night for the great love that you show us in all things but especially in the incarnation of your Son. Lord, you are truly Emmanuel, God with us!

Alleluia. Amen.

Dec 24: Jesus Saves Us from Our Sins

Christoph Weigel: The Angel Appears to Joseph
Biblia ectypa: Bildnussen aus Heiliger Schrifft Alt und Neuen Testaments, 1695

Vigil Mass of the Nativity of the Lord

Gospel: Mt 1:18-25

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins (NRSV, Mt 1:20b-21).”

Father in heaven, as the author of Matthew’s gospel tells us, Joseph learned from the angel in a dream that your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is our Savior. He is the one who saves us from our sins.

Father, you are without bounds. Your infinite being is one with your act. Your being is the very act that begets your Word the Son, and with the Son spirates the Holy Spirit. It is the same one act that creates the world, and within the world sanctifies and forgives. This act which is your being, Lord, knows no here or there, now or then. It just is.

For me, Lord, in my encounter with you, it is the same one act that is you that called me into existence in the womb, that summoned me at that same moment to share in divine life, and that empowered me to say “yes” even though I was still without language or the natural ability to reason. It is the same one act that sanctified me under the sign of water in baptism, that nourishes me in the Eucharist with the communion of saints with whom I share the same life, and indeed summons all of us to further growth in your divine life in every moment of our existence.

My meeting you, Lord, at every moment of my life, is always a response to your one act that cannot be divided. You resist my turning away from you in sin, you challenge me to return to you, and you extend your forgiveness, all in the same one act.

Every human being that has ever existed, exists and will exist, in every time and every place, meets you as I do at each of life’s moments in this same one act.

Father, it is through your Word that you create and sanctify, through your Word in the unity of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus Christ, that Word has become flesh, one of us, here in the world, God incarnate, God fleshed out in a human body.

It is through Jesus then, because your being is your act, which cannot be divided, that you create and sanctify the world. Jesus is the embodiment in space and time of what you are and do, Father, from all eternity. Jesus is the savior, therefore, of every person who has ever lived from the very beginning up to now and will live up to the very end.

We rejoice, therefore, Father, in the birth of our Savior because he is your incarnation, because he is for us the Sacrament, the effective visible sign of that life which you offer to all of humanity at every moment of history and in which you challenge all of us constantly to grow.

Alleluia. Amen.

Dec 24: Love is the One, True Gift

André Beauneveu: King David

Friday of the Fourth Week in Advent

Reading I: 2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16

But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in (NRSV, 2Sm 7:4)?

This, Lord, is the time of the year that we are very conscious of sharing gifts. So many of us at Christmas time want to bestow gifts on those we love.

David, after he settled in Jerusalem, thinking about the Ark of Covenant being sheltered only in a tent, resolved to make you, Lord, a special gift, a gift beyond the animals, first fruits and incense offered in sacrifice. David decided to build a house for you to dwell in, a house made of precious cedar, a Temple.

Your answer, Lord, to David, delivered by the prophet Nathan, must have given him something to think about . . . at least for awhile for David continued with his plans anyway, perhaps on a more modest scale.

Lord, you made very clear to David that you had no need of a house of cedar. “Are you the one to build me a house to live in?” With that you proceeded to recite all of the wonderful things that you had done for David and the people. It was then that you, Lord, through Nathan’s words, promised to build a house for David, not a house of wood, but a ruling house and a kingdom that would last forever, a house and a kingdom that we acknowledge finally to have been realized in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Giving gifts is a very human way of expressing symbolically our love for one another. But give a gift to you, Lord? A gift of what? Everything that is ours, even our very selves, is gift from you. Not only David should have listened but all of us should listen.

After sacrifice upon sacrifice offered to no avail, after David’s ineffectual desire to please you with a temple, it is in the Lord Jesus that we have finally found the Way. Father, you beget, give life, to your Son. You and the Son then share that life, given and received, in Love who is the Holy Spirit. It is in Jesus that we have finally learned that the life that you share one with the other is also, in a much lesser but nevertheless real sense, shared also with us. When we accept the gift of divine life from you, Father, that gift truly to be accepted must always be shared in Love as you and the Son share in the Holy Spirit.

This then is the one gift that we can give you, Lord. Participating in your very life we can go out to one another and to you in the Love that is ultimately your Spirit. We can actually be caught up in the inner life that you share, Father, with your Son in the Holy Spirit.

Lord, we build churches, temples and mosques not really as gifts for you. In the end we build them for ourselves, so that they may help us to focus on you and what we must do with our lives. There are many created things that we may surrender up to you but like sacred buildings their final value is to help us find ourselves by finding your presence in our lives.

There is then only one, true gift, Lord, that we can give you. It is given in Jesus who is the Way. It is your very life, bestowed freely upon us, which is shared in Love with one another and with you.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 23: Rely on the Strength that Comes from the Spirit

Domenico Ghirlandaio: Zechariah Writes Down the Name of John

Thursday of the Fourth Week in Advent

Gospel: Lk 1:57-66

He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God (NRSV, Lk1:63-64).

Lord, you speak one Word to us all in the depth of our being, the same Word in every time and place. There are instances, any given moment, that your Word, however, breaks through to our understanding in a way that seems to us particularly challenging. “Oh, no,” we say, “it cannot be.” “It doesn’t make sense considering what we have been and what we are now.” How little we realize that at every moment we are all called to let go of our past and present and to accept something radically new if only we would listen more carefully to the one Word that you, Lord, speak to us from eternity. And, thinking that we know better, we close our minds and our wills to your invitation into the future that is really growth in your divine life freely offered to us.

With that “no” that we utter, rejecting you, Lord, and your call forward, confusion at very least enters our life, and perhaps worse, the evil that can follow poor judgment. We are like Zechariah who doubted the Word spoken to him by the angel that Elizabeth was to bear a son, and we become, for all that truly matters, like Zechariah, struck dumb. We become helpless, relying on our own strength which is powerless.

How gratefully, we are, Lord, that no matter how stupid or even evil we may become, you never abandon us. Your Word is always there, pressing in upon us, to repent and turn back to you.

Help us, Father, with the strength that you gave Zechariah finally to accept the Word as he heard it in his situation. We truly believe that it is the strength you give always, to all of us. Help us to overcome our own stubbornness and resistance to your call, clinging to what we are now rather than letting go to become something truly new. May we join with Zechariah in this moment to say “yes” to you as we first did in our mother’s womb. May this “yes” also be a commitment never to rely on our own strength but always and solely on the strength that comes from your Holy Spirit.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 22: The Dedicated Life

Jan Victors: Hannah Giving her Son Samuel to the Priest (detail)

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

Reading I: 1 Sm 1:24-28

“For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord (NRSV, 1Sm 1:27-28a)."

When I was a youngster, there seemed something sad, O Lord, about the story of Samuel. After his mother prayed so long to have a child, once her prayers were answered and the child was born, in fulfillment of her promise, she had to surrender him. And so Hannah was childless again. And poor little Samuel. He had to give up his parents that he might stay with the old priest Eli at the shrine. It is interesting, Lord, that we tell the same story about Mary who went to live at the Temple. Anna, even the name is the same, also gave up her only child to satisfy a promise that she and Joachim had made.

It is Jesus in his preaching who finally makes sense for us of these apparently harsh stories. Jesus tells us, Lord, over and over, that there is only one reality that truly matters for us and that, Lord, is you and your coming kingdom. Our lives are chaos unless we first choose you, Lord, and then order everything else under that choice. If we make any created reality the center of our attention, be it spouse or children or parents, it will only mean confusion and worse for us.

Jesus tells us that every one of us, not just a chosen few like Samuel and Mary, must dedicate ourselves to you. Dedication does not mean that we must spend our lives at the shrine or Temple. To the contrary, most lives are to be lived out in the family, in the marketplace and in the public arena. Choosing you first, Lord, however, does mean bringing focus into our lives. It means organizing all of our talents and earthly commitments around you as you call us forth into the future.

The would-be disciple said that he wanted to follow Jesus but that he first had to bury his father. No, one must choose you, Lord, first and then go to bury one’s father.

Samuel and Mary were brought to shrine and Temple by their parents to be dedicated to you. In reality all of us have made that dedication in our own name in our first response to you within the womb. That dedication should be renewed by us at every moment, as it is with great solemnity at our baptism. Help us, Lord, to say “yes” once more at this very moment and then again and again throughout our earthly lives into eternity.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 21: The Mystery of the Visitation

Giotto di Bondone: The Visitation

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

Gospel: Lk 1:39-45

“And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy (NRSV, Lk 1:43-44).”

Lord God, your evangelist Luke saw clearly what is so difficult for us to grasp. The yet unborn, but very much alive, John, still without language or logic, acknowledges, with all that his little body possesses, the physical presence of Jesus in Mary’s womb. John leaps for joy within the womb of his own mother, Elizabeth.

It is easy for us, Lord, to identify who we are with our conscious selves, as if reason were the epitome of our humanity. But, if reason were everything, mathematics and science would be the final expression of human endeavor. What then would happen to art? What poet or musician or painter or sculptor, of any worth, allows himself to be ruled solely by the dictates of logical reason? Michelangelo, great co-creator with you, O Lord, believed that the completed statue was originally imprisoned within the marble itself and only released by the sculptor’s efforts. This tells us that Michelangelo never accepted that his reason was in charge. The masterpiece is always greater than the artist ever intends or plans with his intellect. The artist is as surprised by his own creation as much as is his public.

Lord, if logical discourse cannot explain the work of art, neither can it a fortiori explain your work in us. You, in your infinite majesty, dwell within all of us who will accept you. And even those who turn away are confronted at every moment by the immediate presence of your Word offering forgiveness and challenging return and acceptance. How can created, finite, human reason exhaust such ineffable mystery? It is a limitless, never-ending future to which we are called over and over again. It is all beyond the limits of unaided human reason to explain, this future for us that does not end that is present for you, Lord, who just is.

Lord, we said “yes” to you in the womb in response to your Word. John, having already uttered that same “yes,” then leaped for joy in the physical presence of your Word made flesh. Lord God, you visit us at every moment, in a way that human reason can only suspect. Continue, Lord, to empower us to say “yes,” not only with our intellect, but with all of our being, as John did, that we too may grow and grow in spiritual maturity in this world, now, and in the world to come, forever.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 20: He will be Called Son of God

Phillipe de Champaigne: The Annunciation

Monday of the Fourth Week of Advent

Gospel: Lk 1:26-38

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God (NRSV, Lk 1:15).”

Father in heaven, every person who has ever existed is born of your Holy Spirit. It is in the power of your Spirit that each of us from the womb, without benefit of language or logic, has said “yes” to your call and become a human being, sharing your divine life.

One among us, however, stands apart, the Lord Jesus Christ. The union between you and him, Lord, is perfect and complete. Even as you, Lord, are One, so you and he are One. Although all of us are born of your Holy Spirit, we acknowledge him as your only begotten Son. In Jesus, Father, your Word who speaks and he who hears are the same. Jesus, in Mary’s womb, not only responded in the Spirit to your Word, he is your Word become one of us, your Word incarnate, your Word made flesh.

We, who are your created sons and daughters, honor Mary as the virgin mother of God, because Jesus is your uncreated Son. He is one of us, fully human, yet he is begotten of you and not made. He is God from God and Light from Light, true God from true God.

We read in your evangelist Luke that, as a human being, Jesus grew in wisdom. To be truly human he had to grow in awareness of who he was, as well as face all of life’s challenges, including his passion and death, with the same foreboding as the rest of us. It was only in his resurrection that Jesus’ divinity became manifest. It was then we realized, Lord, that your one act that is your being, your one act that both creates and sanctifies throughout all of history, had in Jesus become incarnate. We recognized at last that divinity and humanity are inseparably joined. From the beginning you share your life with all of us; now, Lord, out of such great love, without sacrificing your divinity, you take upon yourself a human body.

We thank you, Father, for the gift of your Son who, as Word made flesh, enlightens us as to who we are and the destiny to which we are called. He is the Light of the world. May that Light continue to shine upon us and guide us so that we may increase our understanding and be more ready in every moment to grow in response to you and the commitment of service to our sisters and brothers.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Dec 19: Dreams and Visions

Georges de la Tour: The Dream of St. Joseph

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Gospel: Mt 1:18-25

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus (NRSV, Mt 1:24-25).

Lord God, Joseph was a dreamer, not only Joseph, son of Jacob, but also Joseph, son of another, much later, Jacob. This second Joseph was the husband of Mary the mother of Jesus.

Like both Josephs who found guidance from you in dreams, many of us, Lord, have sought you out in dreams and visions. Jacob, the father of the first Joseph also trusted in dreams, as did others, Gideon, Nathan, Solomon, and Daniel. In the Book of Deuteronomy, on the other hand, we read that prophets and those who divine by dreams shall be put to death for having spoken treason against you, Lord our God. Jeremiah too warns us against diviners of dreams who would lead us astray. What, Lord, is your will for us?

Lord God, you speak one Word to all of us. Because it is an eternal Word, it is spoken in time in every moment, from that first moment in the womb when in the power of the Spirit we receive from you, Lord, both physical life and a sharing in your divine life.

Throughout all of human history and during the life of each of us, as you call us forward in every moment to grow in you, Lord, we struggle in the Spirit to understand that Word, deep within us, spoken once and for all and yet spoken always.

There are many privileged occasions, when for this reason or that, one among us seems to see more clearly than the others. Often this new understanding, hardly a new revelation, is associated with a mysterious occurrence like a dream or a vision because in a world governed by cause and effect the understanding must seem to come from somewhere. It really comes, Lord, from within us where it resides always, waiting to be understood in response to your one unchanging gracious act.

If we would better grasp the future to which you call us, Lord, help us to understand more fully your one Word spoken from eternity. Help us to learn from the Word incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, from our sisters and brothers in the faith and from all people of good will, but help us most of all to turn inward and to meet you there in your Spirit as you speak your Word. Help us then to give expression to our greater understanding of your Word, by dreams or visions or however, as long as our lives may change, growing in your love and sharing that love with one another.

Alleluia. Amen.

Dec 18: Jesus the Long Expected King

Gherardo and Monte di Giovanni: King David
with Queen Beatrix, King Matthias of Hungary and King Charles VIII of France in the background

Saturday of the Third Week in Advent

Reading I: Jer 23:5-8

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety (NRSV, Jer 23:5-6a).

Lord, every human who has ever lived meets you at each moment of life from the very first in the womb. You speak your one Word to us, you bestow your life on us and you call us to grow in that life. Not once but over and over. There is no person to whom this has not happened. It is the defining experience of human existence. Even the sinner in turning away from you is constantly called back.

Hearing the one Word, even in the power of the Spirit saying “yes” to the Word, does not bring full understanding. We hear, we accept, we are called forth again but understanding comes gradually.

When we first recognized you as our God summoning us forth, we were a people enslaved in Egypt. We thought that you were merely calling us out of physical slavery and we thought that our future was the land.

How we dreamt of the land. All through the desert, as you led us, we dreamt of nothing except life for us as a people in the land.

But once in the land, there was only strife and injustice. We begged you to name a king to rule over us, but still there was more conflict and then division followed by conquest and deportation into foreign places.

In exile we went on dreaming of a return to the land and especially of a king to reign in righteousness and justice, a branch of the house of David to rule over us.

In the resurrection of Jesus, whom you sent among us, your only begotten Son, the Word incarnate whom we banished from this earth by cruelly putting him to death, we came to understand that our king has finally come. But he is not a king as we expected. He comes, not to rule over us, but to serve us all, even to death. And his kingdom is not here although it has its beginning here. It is finally not the land. It never was the land. It is the kingdom of God, your final rule over all creation, and it belongs to the world to come. You have invited us all, Lord, to live in it forever.

Jesus is truly the new David, forever our king, and not just of those among us whom you, Lord, called out of Egypt but king of all people.

In Jesus we have finally understood that it is not the land but eternal life with you, Lord our God, a destiny to which all are called, a destiny that has its beginning even here on earth in the life which you share.

With each moment, as we continue to say “yes” to you, Father, in the moment, help us to grow more and more in your life and in our understanding of it.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 17: Jesus: The New Moses and the New David for All

Harmoniae Evangelicae Libri Quator: Genealogy

Friday of the Third Week in Advent
Gospel: Mt 1:1-17

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations (NRSV, Mt 1:17).

Lord God, your evangelist, the author of Matthew, opens his gospel by tracing Jesus’ origins, through Joseph, back to David and Abraham. For Matthew, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Hebrew people, the new Moses and the new David. But if Jesus’ ancestry is secure in its Hebrew roots, his mission is universal. At his birth, according to Matthew, there is no mention of a welcome from his own, only Herod’s effort to put him to death by the slaughter of all the male infants of Bethlehem. It is rather the wise men from afar, the others, who come to adore the newborn messiah king. If Jesus, from the opening of Matthew, is king in the line of David, but king open to the others, the gospel ends with Jesus, the new Moses, speaking from the holy mountain, commissioning his eleven disciples to go out and preach the gospel to the ends of the earth, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Father, the fullness of your revelation, spoken to every one of us but often difficult for us to grasp, is incarnate in the person of your only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ. It is Jesus who finally makes sense for us of what had gone before. But just as Jesus sheds light on everything leading up to him, we can come to a better understanding, Lord, of who Jesus is by steeping ourselves in the account of the events that are fulfilled in him. Jesus clarifies the history that preceded him but that same history in turn illumines the reality of Jesus.

Father, if we are to be faithful to you and come to a greater understanding of the revelation given to each of us, help us to be true to our spiritual roots, nurturing ourselves in the history of the Hebrew people. May we be especially attentive to the great prophets who challenged your people then and still challenge us today. May we learn from those who interpreted your law and from the writers of the psalms. Strengthened by this understanding, may we live out our faith in you, Father, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, in such a way as to mediate your saving life and love to all peoples.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 16: God is All-Forgiving

Joseph Anton Koch: Landscape with Noah Offering a Sacrifice of Gratitude

Thursday of the Third Week of Advent
Reading I: Is 54:1-10

“This is like the days of Noah to me: Just as I swore that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you (NRSV, Is 54:9-10).”

So often, Father, over the centuries and indeed in the lives of most of us, we have sensed that you have become angry with us . . . because of our sinfulness. Not only have you turned away from us, removing your favor from us, indeed, you have unleashed your wrath upon us in the form of the worst of calamities. Your people remember and have recorded in sacred writ many of the times when we have been the object of your just anger.

Nevertheless, Lord, often to our amazement, you are always relenting in rage. Whenever we turn back to you and beg forgiveness, we are inevitably pardoned and welcomed back into your favor.

Lord God, you reveal yourself in your one spoken Word to all of us, yet how difficult it is for us fully to grasp your revelation. In Jesus so much of what you say to us has become clearer. Jesus tells us the story of a wayward son who squanders the inheritance begged from his father who is still alive. In his sinfulness, the son can only think of the father as having disowned him. Penitent, the son returns home to beg his father’s forgiveness. But, ever since the son’s departure, the father has done nothing but scan the horizon waiting for his son’s return. When he finally sees the son coming home, he rushes out to greet him, ignoring the son’s rehearsed words begging pardon. The father embraces his son and kisses him and orders the best robe brought out and a ring for his finger. The fatted calf is killed and the celebration begins.

Jesus is telling us that the Father, his Father and ours, is always forgiving, is never angry with us, and showers his favor on us in every situation if only we would accept it.

Lord God, the worst evil in all of history, was the killing of your only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, whom you sent into the world to demonstrate your great love for us. In response to our banishment of your incarnate Son from the world, you did not turn away from us in anger, and pour down your wrath upon us. No, instead your power in Jesus raised him from the dead as the sign of resurrection promised to all who accept it and you made clear to us that your Spirit is always and in every situation offered to us.

Lord God, you are absolute Love, always forgiving, always offering your life to us. May we understand more fully that your promise, which Noah came to understand only after the deluge, is a promise made to all, even from the beginning. Help us to see more clearly that, as there is no place for anger in your life, so we also must reject anger from ours. Empower us, Lord, to go out in loving forgiveness to all of those who have injured us and to seek forgiveness from those whom we have injured.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 15: God Calls Us Forth

Hieronymous Bosch: The Ascent of the Blessed (detail)

Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent
Reading I: Is 45:6c-8, 18, 21c-25

“Let the earth open, that salvation may spring up, and let it cause righteousness to sprout up also; I the LORD have created it (NRSV, Is 45:8c).”

Lord God, Father, so often in the midst of life’s difficulties, whether they are self-inflicted or brought about by circumstances, we cry out, demanding from you, or merely cry out from desperation, “How could this happen? Why me?” Inevitably there is no answer. Because it is the wrong question.

When the Hebrews first recognized you, Lord, who had been there from the very beginning, they were slaves in Egypt. Everything that they wrote about you before the exodus out of Egypt is really a later effort to make some sense out of their origins. When they first recognized you, Lord, their enslavement was an accomplished reality but it was not as if you had condemned them to slavery. It was you who were calling them forth out of slavery into the future. You led them across the sea and then, as a column of cloud by day and fire by night, you led them through the desert. They thought that you were leading them into the land. It was the best that they could do, reading your message sown deep within all of them, but they were right in recognizing that you were calling them to a destiny, to a future. It was only in Jesus’ resurrection that it finally became clear that the destiny was not the land at all but rather a sharing in your divine life forever. They recognized, from Egypt on, that you were leading them but they were still unable to grasp that your presence was not only ahead of them, calling them, but also deep within them, that you had already shared your life with them. And not with them alone. Only an extended reflection on the mystery of Jesus would eventually make it clear that the destiny was not only for a certain people, but that all were chosen. The destiny of life with you forever and ever, with its beginning already here on earth, is the destiny of all humanity.

Lord, you not only called the Hebrews forth from Egypt and then led them out of the desert. In every moment, of every human’s life, you are there calling us forth, all of us, always out of a present that can only be seen as impoverished, into a future of greater freedom, a future of greater sharing in your divinity. Father, you are not the one who puts us into a situation; however it may seem to be. It is you, rather, who calls us forth out of that situation into something better.

If you are creator, Lord, you must be understood as the creator who calls forth: being out of nothingness, grace out of nature, forgiveness out of sin, eternal life out of death. Lord, you did not put us on the earth, into the situation; rather you summon us forth from the earth and out of the situation.

The question then that we should be asking in the midst of life's vicissitudes, in fact in every situation, is not, "How could this happen? Why me?" but rather, "How, in this moment, should I respond to God's call that what appears to be difficulty may become blessing for myself and others?"

Help us, Lord, in whatever condition we may find ourselves, to always search for you in the moment, to listen carefully to your call, and always to say “yes” as you summon us forth, all of us, to a greater share in your life. Every moment, however, bleak it may seem, has an opening to blessing for us, indeed for all.

Alleluia. Amen.

Dec 14: A Gift and an Invitation Offered Over and Over

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: John the Baptist Preaching

Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, priest and doctor of the Church
Gospel: Mt 21:28-32

“John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him (NRSV, Mt 21:32). ”

Lord God, your call to us at every moment to grow more fully in your divine life is what defines human existence. We all said “yes” to you at that particular moment in our mother’s womb when first you called us into existence as human beings, sharers in your own life. We said “yes” without language or logic but in the power of the Spirit given to us. Since that first moment there have been times for us when we have resisted the call, repeated at every moment, even said “no” to you, allowing ourselves to surrender to the enticements of the sin of the world, the sum total of all evil and its effects. But, Lord, your Word always remains present to us, nevertheless, calling us to repent, to change our ways and to accept divine forgiveness for the evil that we do. No matter how many times, Lord, that we fall, you are ever ready to pick us up that we may begin anew.

Some have argued that you have a special plan, Lord, for each one of us, a role to play in the universe in a particular way that only we can fulfill. But the universe, Lord, is too complicated for that. We are much too dependent on the free choices of others, which could go this way or that, in determining our temporal situation. And our own actions, sometimes well-intended but foolish, other times sinful, limit the possible earthly path our future may take. No, Lord, we are not a uniquely shaped piece that can only fit its proper location in a pre-determined universe.

Because of human freewill the universe is a dynamic reality ever changing form and direction, going this way and that. But at every moment, wherever we may be on life’s path, as determined by the actions of others and following upon our own choices, good and ill, you are always there, offering us your life, to grow in it or, having rejected it, to accept it once again. That is your one calling to all of us, that whatever the situation may be, that we will say “yes” in a way that is most beneficial for our sisters and brothers . . . and ourselves. Such love, Lord, that in spite of possible rejection after rejection, you always offer forgiveness and a fresh start.

Too many times, Lord, have we ignored signs in the world that should have awakened us to your Word spoken with us. How many John the Baptists have we disregarded or snubbed, how many of your prophets have we persecuted for speaking your truth, and mocked those ready to respond to their preaching and your call. If we have ignored your Word spoken within us, help us, at least, Lord, to begin by hearkening to its presence around us, lived out in the lives of so many of our sisters and brothers. We have said “no” to you too often, Lord. Help us to say “yes,” as we did in our mother’s womb, now to be said again, not merely once, but over and over and over.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 13: The Call to Prophesize

Rembrandt van Rijn: The Ass of Balaam Talking before the Angel

Memorial of Saint Lucy, virgin and martyr
Reading I: Nm 24:2-7, 15-17a

"The oracle of Balaam son of Beor, the oracle of the man whose eye is clear, the oracle of one who hears the words of God, and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty, who falls down, but with his eyes uncovered: I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near-- a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel (NRSV, Nm 24:15b-17a).”

Heavenly Father, you pursue us all with your Word. You are unrelenting in your love for us that leads us to understand your one Word spoken to all, often in spite of ourselves. Balaam was a diviner, a fortune teller for pay. He was one from whom blessings and curses could be bought and the king of Moab sought Balaam’s curse upon Israel. When Balaam set out to bargain with the king, his donkey responded to your messenger who blocked the path, even if Balaam himself was blind to the angel’s presence. Finally, your Word, Lord, came through clearly to Balaam who pronounced blessing upon blessing for Israel against the king of Moab's wishes.

Every one of us, if we listen carefully enough to your Word spoken to all, are capable of seeing implications of the moment in which we live for the future to which you call us. Balaam, for all of his weakness, in the end saw clearly: I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near-- a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.

In the history of your people, Lord, you have raised up great prophets, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, who have listened so very carefully to your one Word spoken to every one of us at every moment. Help us, Lord, also to listen well, that we too may hear and understand more fully. As your prophets have guided your people through difficult times into the future and challenged them to lead more moral lives, so empower us that we may better grasp the moral and political situation in which we live and make sound judgments for tomorrow. Help us not only to judge well but then to act that our community and world may be ever more responsive to the life and power which you always offer to humankind. Shunning violence and oppression, may we be agents of your justice and peace.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Dec 12: Every Believer an Angel

Wayne Hajos: John the Forerunner (Angel of the Desert)

Third Sunday of Advent
Gospel: Mt 11:2-11

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you (NRSV, Mt 11:10b).”

Lord God, in Jesus, you have made clear for us a truth that has been spoken to us all, to everyone, from the very beginning: you are not a distant God, dwelling in your high heaven, only looking down upon your creation from afar. We do not have to go up alone, as Moses did, into the clouds and storm of a mountain to find you or into the Tent of Meeting to speak with you. Or, as the high priest did once a year, enter alone into the Holy of Holies of the Temple to stand in your presence. From Jesus we have learned that when we wrestle over the deepest problems of our life, it is not, as Jacob did, with some lesser being that we wrestle, but it is with you, Lord, that we wrestle, with your very self.

In Jesus, Lord, we have learned that your own divine life has been pour out upon us so that we share immediate in your divinity, in everything that you are. Yes, you dwell, not on a high mountain away from us, or even in a Holy of Holies that we are forbidden to enter, but, as long as we are ready to accept you, you live in the depth of our being, closer to us that we are to ourselves. Even when we say “no” and turn away from you in the selfishness that is sin, when we reject the Spirit that brings us your life, your Word remains ever present to us, challenging us to repent and to turn back to you. Because we are human beings, made in your own image and likeness, it is impossible for us to remove ourselves from your immediate presence. And that is the real horror of sin: to live in the presence of a loving God who is rejected.

It is only in the saving witness of Jesus that we have come to grasp that which has been revealed from the beginning. For too long, Lord, we thought of you as so very distant. When, in a privileged moment, we allowed you to break through our confusion, we said it could not be. It had to be, not you, but at best a messenger, an angel, who was bringing your word to us.

We thought that it was only your angel who spoke to Abraham, who saved Isaac from immolation, who wrestled with Jacob, or who challenged Moses from the burning bush.

The prophet Malachi promised us that a messenger would announce the definitive coming of the Day of the Lord. That “angel” was understood to be Elijah returned from heaven. Jesus himself spoke of that messenger, of Elijah returned, as John the Baptist. Because of this, in the Church, John has, over the centuries, been portrayed as an angel with wings, the swift messenger of the Lord, the angel of the desert.

Yes, Lord, John is messenger, but not merely one who brings your word from on high. John, like all of your saints, lives your divine life, and that life radiates out from him. Jesus is your incarnate presence in the world but your divine life shines forth from all of your saints.

Help us all, Lord, to continue to say “yes” to your gift of divine life, that the mission entrusted to John, to announce your coming, may also be a mission shared in different ways by all of us, that we may become more fully your messengers and thus serve one another by mediating to one another your life and love that are always present in every human situation.

Alleluia. Amen

Dec 11: The Challenge to be Elijah and John

Giuseppe Angeli: Elijah Taken Up in a Chariot of Fire

Saturday of the Second Week of Advent
Reading I: Sir 48:1-4, 9-11

You were taken up by a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot with horses of fire. At the appointed time, it is written, you are destined to calm the wrath of God before it breaks out in fury, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and to restore the tribes of Jacob (NRSV, Sir 48:9-10).

Lord God, your people in the time of Jesus looked forward to the return of Elijah, taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, that he might introduce the messianic age. Your evangelist Luke writes that the angel Gabriel announced to Zechariah that his son to be born, John, would go in the spirit and the power of Elijah. Jesus himself, in Matthew’s gospel, presumably also speaking of John and his being put to death, says that Elijah had indeed already come but that he was unrecognized and that they did to him what pleased them.

Father, over the years, in pondering your written Word and its significance for me, I have concluded, not alone, with others, that what is said to one in scripture is in a real sense said to all. When one is sent that mission is truly given as well to everyone.

In his expected return, Elijah was understood to be the forerunner of the messianic age. John the Baptist in truth was the precursor of the Lord Jesus. Their role of announcing the coming of the Lord, if I understand well what you speak to me at the depth of my being, is entrusted as well to me, indeed to everyone who hears the message and stands ready to accept the challenge.

Your kingdom, Lord, is a future event but it is also breaking in upon the present. Resurrection is now, clearly for Jesus, but it also has its beginning in everyone ready to say “yes” to your offer of divine life.

Lord, continue to pour out your divine life upon us. Invite us, all of us, to be forerunners of your coming into the world. You challenge us to announce the message in words, yes, but in words filled with meaning, by lives that have been transformed. Fill us with the spirit and power of Elijah, your spirit and power, that we will become real instruments of peace in the world. Enable us to minister to the needs of the poor and the ill at home and around the world. May your healing power radiate out from us to others. Help us to fulfill ourselves by lives given for others, lives devoted to serving one another. May we truly be Elijah and John for our sisters and brothers.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 10: One Kingdom: Many Different Vocations

Geertgen tot Sint Jans: John the Baptist in the Wilderness


Paolo Veronese: Jesus in the House of Levi (detail)

Friday of the Second Week of Advent
Gospel: Mt 11:16-19

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon;’ the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners (NRSV, Mt 11:16-19a) !’ ”

Lord God, we thank you for so many gifts, especially for the gift of your divine life that you share with us, and for forgiveness when we turn away from you in sin, but even as you forgive us and once more pour out your life upon us, sin has its own consequences which continue to bring a certain confusion into our lives. The sin of the world, what Augustine called original sin, has its inevitable effect for us.

We search here and there in our experience for something to bring meaning into our lives but, because of the effect of sin in us, the search often brings with it only greater confusion. Some may try to flee the world to find peace; others may seek it in conviviality with others. All without success.

Jesus tells us how foolish we are. There is only one reality that brings meaning for us. It is the other worldly reality, Lord God, of your kingdom, even now bursting forth into the world. Jesus tells us to accept first your kingdom and then to organize everything in our lives around that one choice. Your divine life ruling our lives will inevitably find a different expression in each of us according to the situation in which we find ourselves.

John had his calling, that of forerunner. Jesus, of course, had his own mission to accomplish, that of Messiah. Lord, each us is called to give expression to your life in ways special to our talents and situation.

We have learned from your Son Jesus that no project within this world, however noble it may seem, has meaning if it is made an end in itself. All meaning comes from subordination, Lord, to your coming kingdom. Some, as John, may find you by listening in the desert; others by searching for you in the marketplace. For all of us it is your coming kingdom, Lord God, that alone can give value to our lives.

Help us, Lord, first to surrender our lives to your coming kingdom and then to discover what each of us must do, one different from the other, to manifest your life to all of our sisters and brothers.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 9: God's Life Offered to All

Pskov School Icon: The Descent into Hell
Also known as the Anastasis or Raising Up
The risen Jesus extends his hands to Adam and Eve.
John the Baptist is to the right of Jesus.

Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
Gospel: Mt 11:11-15

“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he (NRSV, Mt 11:11).”

Lord God, at every moment that you call each one of us forward to grow in you, we are amazed, indeed overwhelmed, by that which you have in store for us, of which we could not conceive beforehand. And yet your promise was always there, from the beginning, only recognized by us in part and gradually.

Lord, your Son Jesus preached the coming of your kingdom. His followers, listening to him, still expected a reality within this world, as was the expectation of your people from the time of Abraham. Your promise had always been understood as the land. In the resurrection of Jesus and the challenge which it brought into the lives of the apostles, it became clear that we are called, not, as had been thought until then, to dwell as a people in the land, but to an other-worldly reality, to life with you, Lord, in which you would share your very own life with us. And indeed that sharing of life would have its beginning in the here and now, in this world.

The kingdom of God was understood by the apostles to have begun with the resurrection of Jesus. That is why, Lord, that John the Baptist, great as he was, could not have been compared to anyone who accepted belief in the risen Jesus.

But growth in grace brings growth in understanding. How could all of those who prepared the way for the coming of Jesus be in any way excluded from the promise, now more fully understood? Jesus, risen from the dead, must have liberated from the snares of death all those before him who had prepared his way. In Jesus’ harrowing of hell, John the Baptist was the greatest of them to be set free but even the very first parents were not to be rejected.

But why, Lord, would John and the others have to wait until the moment of the resurrection to share in your life, if it had been the promise all through the ages? Again, Lord, every moment in history brings with it the possibility of further growth in your life and growth in understanding. Lord your act is your being. As your being is one so also is your act. In your one act you beget your Son and, together with your Son, you share your life in the Holy Spirit. In that same one act that begets divinity, you also create and bestow life on us, even a share in your divine life. That same one eternal act that embraces all of time, always giving life, is made manifest in the incarnation of your Son. All then who have ever lived from the beginning, and will live, have the possibility of accepting your life even from the womb. Their acceptance of that life, made in your power, is what makes them human. Lord God, in Christ, you, who offer your life to every human in every time and every place, take a human body upon yourself, so much do you love us.

Lord God, with John the Baptist, and with all who have come before him and afterwards, may we rejoice in the gift of your divine life that you have shared with every one of us. And may we give thanks for the destiny to which you invite us all, over and over, at every moment, to live that life with you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, forever and ever.
Alleluia. Amen.

Dec 8: Let It Be with Me According to Your Word

Diego Velasquez: The Immaculate Conception

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Gospel: Lk 1:26-38

Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word (NRSV, Lk: 38a).’

Lord God, your evangelist Luke tells us that when Mary heard the angel speaking to her, she was at first confused. “How can this be?” It is the same response that comes from so many of your servants when finally they hear your Word speaking to them at the depth of their being. Isaiah said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Jeremiah said, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."

Mary, like others among us, thought that everything in her life was going well. In her case, she was engaged to be married. She looked forward to a life as wife and mother, a life not very different, she hoped, from the lives of many other young women that she knew. And then, of a sudden, all of that was shattered as she came to understand the future to which you, Father, were calling her and what her response had to be.

Mary was at first puzzled, even confused, but, in faith, Lord, she responded: “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Mary’s destiny was to be the mother of Jesus, your only begotten Son. Each of us has our own destiny as sharers, Lord, in your divine life. We are all called to fulfill that destiny at every moment of our lives, even from the womb. Mary, too, was called not just once, but over and over, throughout her earthly life and beyond, as she says, “Yes,” each time to your divine summons.

For all of us, at every moment, your call, Lord, bursts in upon our lives and shatters them, not once, but over and over again, however we may respond, every time summoning us forward to a future that we, like Mary, could not have conceived even an instant before.

Help us, Lord, to follow the example of your holy servants, especially Mary, Theotokos, the mother of your Son Jesus, that we too may say, “Yes,” at each moment, as, bursting into our lives to shatter them, you call us ever forward to grow in your divine life.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dec 7: The Word of God: Our One True Hope

Vincent Van Gogh: Clumps of Grass

Memorial of Saint Ambrose, bishop and doctor of the Church
Reading I: Is 40:1-11

“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever (NRSV, Is 40:8).”

Father, everything that we experience in the physical word changes. Even among living things, there is inevitably the decline and death that follow upon birth and growth to maturity. Nothing that we grasp by the senses seems to have any real stability.

It is finally, Lord, by turning inward upon ourselves, there at the depth of our being, that we find the anchor for our lives which is your Word spoken from all eternity. It is there in your Word, and only there, that our true hope is founded.

Father, it is by your Word that you have created everything that has been made. It is the same Word that you speak in eternity that we hear in time. Because we live in the here and now, in the world that is finite, Lord, we must listen carefully to what you speak. Because of our finitude we hear only in part, always from a point of view, always the truth that you speak, yes, but nevertheless limited by our situation in history, by our own sinfulness and the common sinfulness of humanity, that which we know as the sin of the world.

And still, your Word, even grasped only in part, is our final hope for meaning in this world.

To aid us, as we ourselves listen and ponder, we seek out the assistance of the prophets for they are the most sensitive among us and hear the best. They are always a challenge for the rest of us.

Of course, it is in the Lord Jesus Christ that we find your spoken Word incarnate among us. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus embodies everything that you are, Lord, and everything that you would have us do. He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. And so, with your Spirit to enlighten us, we also struggle principally and relentlessly to learn from Jesus, especially by reflecting on the gospels, the Church’s written statements of faith in him, and the other writings of the Christian scripture which describe the effect that the risen Christ had upon the early Church.

We listen also to the cumulative understanding of believers, the whole Church, in all of its manifestations. We listen to the church’s saints, its teachers and its bishops, especially the patriarchs of the East and the West, and, in particular, the successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome.

Nor do we ignore the thoughts and writings of the other great religions of world because all of them are ultimately expressions of the same one truth spoken constantly to every human being. We listen especially to Jews and Moslems who, with Christians, claim spiritual descent from Abraham. We also look to the great religions of the East. Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tze, among many others, are all brothers to us.

We pay close attention as well to philosophers, scientists, and men and woman of letters who have much to say about your Word, often in spite of themselves and without realizing the source of their wisdom.

And lastly we listen to all of our sisters and brothers to whom, Lord, you speak your same one Word. All have a contribution to make, frequently from the one least expected. That is often the way, Lord, in which your Holy Spirit has his effect.

But our inquiry and reflection is for naught, Lord, if we do not turn inward with it all, to lay it at the altar of your one spoken yet uncreated Word.

Father, in this world where change dominates all things, where the grass withers, the flowers fade and even the people often appear like grass, may we ever be responsive to your invitation to turn inward, bringing with us our conversation with all of creation. There, enlightened by the wisdom of the ages, may we encounter your one Word that stands forever. Help us, Lord, step by step, to grow in our understanding of that one Word and learn to be responsive to his wisdom and grace. That unchanging Word that you speak, who created us and all things, is our only way to you.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.