God: Incarnate, Humble and Intimate

Today's Gospel, Luke 1: 26-38, presents the Annunciation:  An angel appears to Mary, declaring that she has found favor with God, hailing her as "full of grace,"  one with whom the Lord is!  This greeting "greatly" troubles Mary to the point that the angel needs to calm her down: "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God." The angel then goes on to say: "You will conceive in your womb and bear a son....How can this be, Mary asks, since I have no relations with a man?  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 called holy, the Son of God.... for nothing is impossible for God...Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word."

The second person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God, through the power of the Spirit, assumes our humanity in the womb of Mary, a 15 or 16 year old engaged to be married to Joseph.  Mary becomes the mother of God Incarnate!  God becomes one of us, fully human yet fully divine!  His glory is hidden in the infant Jesus and revealed to only a few persons on earth. God's glory, God's divinity, God's power and infinite holiness hidden in Jesus' birth, throughout most of His earthly life and on the cross, according to God's plan for our salvation! This same God is hidden in the host consecrated at every Catholic Liturgy and given to us as spiritual food in every Holy Communion!

Jesus says to us: "I became human for you. I lived for you. I died for you. I rose for you. I sent the Holy Spirit to you.  It is that Holy Spirit that comes down on every altar during the consecration and changes bread and wine into my body and blood, soul and divinity for your sanctification and salvation. I delight that you participate in this sacred banquet in anticipation of the eternal banquet in heaven."

How humble is our God! How awesome. How intimate! How caring!

God's Faithfulness

In today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 100, we are reminded that God's "kindness endures forever, and his faithfulness, to all generations."  I entered prayer this morning after a discussion about our president and "mean-spirited" members of Congress bent on repealing the Affordable Care Act, depriving millions of healthcare and eventually, over time, eliminating Medicare as well.  I hear the words of  our president during his campaigning for the office of presidency: What we need in America are more billionnaires. His resolve to make the wealthy wealthier is abominable to me, is cruel to the poor and oppressed who have everything to lose, especially if he succeeds in his efforts to destroy ACA and DACA and other executive orders, including those that will bring destruction to Mother Earth!

Frustrated by how to make a difference so  what looks like evil will not triumph,  I turned to God and complained about what is happening as the result of the efforts of the president and members of Congress to "make America great again" according to their efforts to increase their personal wealth and that of corporations from which they seem to personally benefit.  I was reminded in the responsorial psalm that God is faithful "to all generations."  I thought of Moses when the Israelites were fighting the Amalekites. "As long as Moses kept his arms raised [in prayer] Israel had the advantage; when he let his arms fall, the advantage went to Amalek." Let's paraphrase that statement: "As long as you and I keep our arms raised in prayer, evil will not triumph!" That does not mean that evil will disappear but it will not have the upper hand! Prayer is powerful!    God does care about  the poor and oppressed. God cares about immigrants and the so-called Dream children. God cares that the sick have healthcare coverage and do not have to choose between getting the medication they need and putting food on the table. God cares about those with pre-existing conditions who may lose coverage, and so on.  God cares about you and me. Let us care about our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus--all of them!

Given the situations we face in the U.S. and in the world today, we need, I believe, to get on our knees and pray for God's intervention to stop the evil being sought by Congress and world leaders bent on flexing their nuclear muscles or muscles that lead to war and violence.  We need God's intervention now!

God Comes with Power

In today’s first reading, Isaiah 40: 1-11, Isaiah reminds us that our God comes with power; that he “rules by his strong arm.”  We are about to celebrate Christmas, the birth of our Savior. God came to us as a powerless infant, was subject to Mary and Joseph as a child, assumed his public ministry at around the age of 30, clashed with authorities of his day and was put to death.  Where is the power, we may wonder.  Our God rules very differently than the kings of this world. God does not use power in the same way we do. Jesus’ power  is His humility and his obedience to the Father’s will.   The mounds of evil were leveled on Calvary, where Jesus, in His obedience to the Father’s will unto death, destroyed Satan, crushed His head.

 God continues to enter our lives humbly in the Eucharist and through the quiet voice of the Spirit speaking and working in the depths of our being and in the depths of the hearts of others as well. We don’t see God at work most of the time because we are looking with eyes other than those of our deepest God-self.  We see as the world sees, not as God sees.  Most of the time, like Peter,  who rebuked Jesus for making it clear “that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day” (Mt. 16: 21),  we think, “not as God thinks but as human beings do” (Mt. 16: 23).
Yes, the “Lord Yahweh [is] coming with power, his arm maintains his authority,” (Is. 40: 10), the authority that put Satan to death on the cross, that put Satan to death by His obedience to the Father unto death, that put Satan to death by His humility.

By whose power to I overcome evil? By whose power do I triumph? Certainly not my own but God’s grace quietly transforming me from within and empowering me to “love tenderly,  act with justice and walk humbly with our God” (compare Micah 6:8).  God is transforming the world one person at a time by our cooperation in His work of redemption.