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!

The Living Bread

Today's Gospel, John 6: 51-58, opens with Jesus saying to Us: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

"I am the living bread."  I left heaven for you. I have come down to earth to be one with you. When I returned to my Father, I left you the Eucharist, myself as "the living bread."  In every Eucharist  you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, a gift I gave to you at the Last Supper when I said to my disciples attending that meal: "This is my body given up for you; take and eat." And with the wine served at that meal, I took it in my sacred hands and, as the High Priest of God, blessed the wine and said to the disciples: "Take and drink; this is the blood of the New Covenant which will be poured out of you." My changing water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana prefigured the Eucharist that I would leave with you in the hands of priests to follow my Way.  To priests, I have given the power at every Catholic Mass to change bread and wine into my body and blood for your spiritual nourishment and to fulfill the promise I made at my Ascension: I will be with you always until the end of time and, in this case, in the Eucharist.  Not only am I with you in the Eucharist, but I reside in the depth of your being and in all of creation. As God, I am everywhere sustaining all in existence, strengthening all, governing all, loving all, comforting all, challenging all and transforming all into the Divine, as My Love knows no end. I will draw all persons and all things to Me.  Your transformation will be complete in eternity and so, too, for everyone else open to the graces I pour out upon you an them from the cross every moment of every day!  Do you believe? Do you trust?"

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. 

The Awesome Charity of God

In the Franciscan Office for today, one of the readings is St. Clare’s Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague, who became a poor Clare, leaving all of her wealth to follow Jesus. St. Clare writes:   “At the surface of the mirror [of the Cross], consider the holy  humility, the blessed poverty, the untold labors and burdens that Jesus endured for the redemption of the whole human race. Then, in the depth of this same mirror, contemplate the ineffable charity that led Jesus” to suffer excruciating pain and unutterable torture throughout his passion and death.  Consider God’s charity in hanging naked on the cross dying a shameful and humiliating death for our sakes.

As I contemplated God’s charity, poverty and humility, I was brought to my own knees.  Here is the Creator of the Universe nailed shamefully and cruelly on this tree of torture, giving up His very life for my sake, for the salvation of us all. What do I do when I am asked to give up something for the sake of the other, for the common good of the family, the community, the mission of the Church? I had to admit my own shortcomings, weaknesses, and, yes, even sinful selfishness when it comes to letting go, not of my very life as Jesus did, but of my addiction to work, my clinging to my way, my unwillingness to sacrifice for a good greater than myself.

What about you? Ever find yourself face to face with this challenge of selfless giving, of being poor for the sake of the other, of needing to ask forgiveness for a pouting stubbornness and entrenched selfishness that reveals itself in your withholding love, being unwilling to turn off the TV, put down the cellphone, turn off the computer, be flexible to accommodate another person's need?