Christ Comes to Set Us Free

The Entrance Antiphon of today's liturgy reminds us that "Christ our King is coming, he is the Lamb foretold by John."  In the Collect of today's liturgy, we lift our voices, saying: "Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who are weighed down from of old by slavery beneath the yoke of sin, may be set free by the newness of the long-awaited Nativity of your Only Begotten Son." 

Each one of us, every day, experiences the "slavery beneath the yoke of sin" that weighs down upon us.  We may do things or say things that we regret having said or done, or regret not having said or done things that we knew needed to be done or said. Also, our thoughts may be anything but kind. We, as well, may find ourselves grumbling or complaining about something, resentful of what is being asked of us as a committed responsible member of a religious community or as a father/a mother, a child, a student, an employee.  We may even tell God that what is expected of us is too much to ask of us.

Let us turn to the Lord and ask to "be set free by the newness of the long-awaited Nativity of [God's] Only Begotten Son."  Let us acknowledge our  weaknesses and/or our complaining about the challenges we face in our lives, knowing, in faith, that because of our humanity we need God's help. In graciously, humbly and courageously meeting our responsibilities in life, we need God to infuse us with the graces of the Holy Spirit to be faithful and committed, to hold nothing back, as Jesus held nothing back for us as He gave His life in self-sacrificing love on the cross. On the crosses of our lives, may we do the same for others as Jesus did for us--pour ourselves out for the other's sake, "bread" shared and broken as at every Eucharistic sacrifice of the Holy Mass!

Jesus Enters our Humanity Fully and Lovingly

Today's Gospel, Matthew 1: 1-17, presents the genealogy of Jesus.  His ancestry contains murderers, assassins, adulterers, prostitutes, persons involved in all kinds of deception, corruption, and idolatry!  Throughout all of that history, God's plan of salvation and showing humankind the depth, the length, the height and width of God's love is never thwarted. God, the Creator  of the Universe and of all of humankind enters humanity. Jesus, the Incarnate God, as the God man, was plotted against throughout his public ministry by educated men who saw him as a threat. They became jealous of him to the point of having Him, the Son of God, crucified as a public sinner.

Just as the plan of God to save humankind from Satan's snares and to show us the depth of God's love for us was never thwarted throughout the history of the Jewish people, so, too, today, God's love for you and me and for every member of our ancestral history  is never thwarted. God's plan to save us will prevail!  God's love for us is not fickle or inconsistent.  He waits for us to return to Him,  if we have gone astray. He waits for our return as the father of the prodigal son waited for his son's return from a life of debauchery and wasteful living. God does not give up when we give up on ourselves or on a family member or anyone else! God waits because God's love for us is eternal and unconditional.

Will you, will I, come back to the Lord in repentance when we have lost our way and got caught in Satan's lies?

Transformation through Emmanuel with Us

In today's first reading, Isaiah 41: 13-20, the Lord speaks through the prophet, saying to us:  "I am the Lord, your God, who grasp your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.' Fear not, O worm Jacob, O maggot Israel; I will help you, says the Lord; your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. I will make of you a threshing sledge, sharp, new, and double-edged, to thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff. When you winnow them, the wind shall carry them off and the storm shall scatter them. But you shall rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the Holy One of Israel."

Reading this, I am, at first, offended by the Lord describing Jacob and Israel as worms and maggots. What? a worm? a maggot?  Then the thought came to me of the transformation of each of us when, as Isaiah says later in this passage, we are made "a threshing sledge, sharp, new, and doubled-edged, to thresh the mountains [of sin] and crush them, to make the hills chaff."   What are we, in Christ Jesus, threshing and turning into chaff which the wind blows away?  Mountains of pride and selfishness, of deceitfulness and corruption; in short, sin in us is transformed, by grace, into holiness! All of this leads us to "rejoice  in the Lord, and glory in the Holy One of Israel."

Through the shedding of His blood on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, Jesus clothed us with a mantle of justice and put a robe of salvation on us. In our baptism we died with Christ and rose with Him; hence the "mountains" are crushed and the "hills"turned to chaff, rough ways are made smooth and the heavens are opened for the redeemed!

That is why God became human!

God's Design and God's Purpose

Today we celebrate the feast of  Our Lady of Guadalupe--Mary's appearance to Juan Diego, a Native American belonging to the Aztec tribe!   As with Jesus, Mary's love for the poor and oppressed are revealed in this visit to Juan Diego.  Because the bishop did not at first believe Juan Diego that Mary wanted a cathedral built on the spot where she appeared to him, he asked Mary to choose someone else. And Mary said "No, I have chosen you."  The Bishop wanted proof, so Juan Diego asked for such and was told that there would be roses on a snowy hill nearby. He found the roses and wrapped them in his cloak and took them to the bishop. When Juan Diego opened his cloak and gave the Bishop the roses, there on his cloak was an imprint of our Blessed Mother clothed as an Aztec woman. Many miracles have occurred  for the Mexican people through the intercession of Mary in the cathedral built at her request.

Like Juan Diego and like Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe,  and like so many others who have gone before us, each one of us has been called to fulfill God's design and purpose that only we, with God's help, are able to do.  If we refuse, that particular purpose is not accomplished. God designed it so! We might, as was the case with  Juan Diego, want God to choose someone else whom we believe is better equipped to carry out what God is asking of us; however, God choose you and me for a specific purpose and equips us to carry out His design no less than He equipped Juan Diego and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, to do what was theirs to do.  When what is being asked of us seems too difficult, and we encounter our weaknesses, that is when God intervenes for us. At times like those, we also know much we depend upon God to empower us to do the good that is ours to do. May you and I humbly step up to the plate and embrace God's will for us as Mary and Juan Diego did!

God Rules with His Strong Arm

In today's first reading, Isaiah  40: 1-11, Isaiah asks us to "comfort, give comfort to my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated.  Indeed, she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins....A voice...[cries] out [that] [a]ll flesh is grass, and all their glory like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it. So then, the people is the grass. Though the grass withers and the flower wilts, the word of the God stands forever....Here comes with power the Lord God, who rules with his strong arm; here is his reward with him, his recompense before him. Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms her gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care."

We belong to God. Because we are God's creation, God's cherished children, God did not hold anything back in His love for us.  His recompense is our salvation secured for us by the death of
God's only begotten Son, by God in human form put to death as a criminal!  As on Calvary, so, now, God "rules with his strong arm." God gathers us in his arms, carries us in his bosom, leads us with care now and always until that moment with "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken....A voice....[that] says...."Here is our God! Here comes with power the Lord God, who rules by his strong arm."

My faith tells me that God is always in work in our world: in the earthquakes, the fires, the disasters, the mud slides, the floods, the rescues, the surfacing of truth, the generosity of persons reaching out to help those in need, the divisions caused by greed, dishonesty, injustice.  What looks like disaster, as on that very first Good Friday, will at some point give rise to new life!  Why? because God "rules with his strong arm."

God's Desire for His Healing Power to Flow into and out of Us

In today's first reading, Isaiah 35: 1-10,  Isaiah says to us: "Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save [us]. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing....A highway will be there, called the holy way; no one unclean may pass over it, nor fools go astray on it. No lion will be there, nor beast of prey go up to be met upon it.  It is for those with a journey to make and on it the redeemed will walk. Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy; they will  meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning will flee."

I read that with intense gratitude for God's graciousness to us, His immense love.  God held nothing back to secure salvation for those who believe!  God showed His love to us in Jesus' life, death and resurrection!  In today's Gospel, Luke 5: 17-26,  the love of God for His people is shown in Jesus' healing all those  who personally sought Him out or of those brought to Him by others, including the paralyzed man dropped in front of Him through the roof of the house in which Jesus was sitting. The people who brought this paralyzed man to Jesus would let nothing stop them from getting this man the help for which he longed. They were as persistent to receive God's gift of healing as God is persistent to give us this gift, be it physical, psychological, or spiritual healing.

I believe! What about you?

The Glory of God's Voice within our Hearts

In the Entrance Antiphon to today's liturgy, we are reminded that "the Lord will make the glory of his voice heard in the joy of [our] heart[s]."  Am I hearing that voice? And, if not, what is blocking me from hearing it? Am I keeping myself too busy? Are my thoughts clouded with the noise of anger, jealousy, or worry?  Have I shut God out in my pursuit of security in material things? Have I hardened by heart by a lack of gratitude, by pride, by hatred and prejudice?  Have I chosen people, possessions and power as my gods?

It is never too late to turn back to the Lord, to seek the Lord above all else, to repent and be saved! If we have gone astray, God, like the father of the prodigal son  (Luke  15: 11-32), waits for our return with arms open in mercy!  His love for us never wavers! God who, as St. Paul says to us in today's second reading, Philippians 1: 4-6, 8-11,   "began a good work in you [and me on the day that we were baptized and He] will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."  Yes, it is God's will that we enter into His glory when we die, that is, that we accept the free gift of salvation!  Is that your will/my will? Let us prove it by living lives of integrity, honesty, purity, love, mercy and justice.