God's Delight in Us

In today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 149, we make the following proclamation: "The Lord takes delight in his people."  I invite you and me to rephrase that to say: "The Lord takes delight in me."  When you are awed by the sunrise or sunset, think of God gazing at you with awe as well. When you are overcome with an intense sense of gratitude for your son or daughter or the new child that you have just brought home from the hospital following his/her birth, think of God being filled with intense gratitude for you.  Yes, God delights in you day and night!

In our darkest moments, you and I might totally disagree that God could ever "delight"  in us. We might deeply deny this possibility when we are filled with a sense of shame and guilt, when we may have just exploded in anger or made an assumption about someone and that assumption is proven totally untrue, or at moments when we may have failed to defend another person when such is being bullied or when we join a "gossip party".

However, God, I believe,  always sees us as redeemed by His Son, that is, clothed with a robe of salvation, made righteous by His Son's sufferings, death and resurrection (cf Isaiah 61: 10).  About you or anyone else,  God  says to us: "My thoughts are not your thoughts" (Is 58: 8-9).

Blessed with Every Spiritual Blessing in Heaven

The second reading of today’s liturgy is from Eph. 1: 3-6, 11-12.  I invite you to read it, addressing the Lord and reading it in the first person, inserting  your name. I did and it reads as follows:

“Lord, God, You have blessed me in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heaven, as You chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before You.”  You “clothe me with a robe of salvation” (Is 61:10).  The price You paid for that robe was the death of Your Son on Calvary.  “In love You destined me for adoption to Yourself through Christ Jesus in accord with the favor of Your will for the praise of the glory of Your grace that You granted me in the beloved.”

“In Christ [you, Dorothy Ann, were]… chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplished all things according to the intention of his will, so that you might exist for the praise of God’s glory.”

Wow, what a loving God! What generosity! What a gift!

I thank you and praise you, Lord, God.  May my awareness of Your love deepen. May I not take the gift of salvation for granted!  You sacrificed your Son that I might have life and have it eternally!

And this Christmas we celebrate your birthday—the day your entered into our way of life to transform it, to redeem it, to bring us back to God by your death upon the cross, when you were crucified on Calvary, being obedient to the Father unto death to undo our disobedience, our choosing our own wills in place of Yours.  O God, have mercy upon us each time we rebel and go our own ways.