19 December 2013 - root access

19 December 2013 - root access

For you are my hope, O LORD;
my trust, O God, from my youth.
On you I depend from birth;
from my mother’s womb you are my strength.

The LORD's plans for us begin before we even know him.  The only thing that comes close to this love is the love of our parents which precedes us and brings us into being.  But God's love for us precedes all of creation and brings all things into being for us.  We depend on him from birth, but before we are even formed in the womb he knows us (cf. Jer. 1:5).

We should be eager, therefore, to discover his will for us.  In some cases we will be called, like Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist to be set apart for God.  The angel says about some of us, "this boy is to be consecrated to God from the womb." 

What if we feel like we can't find his will?  What if we can't discover the fruit he wants to bear in us?  We feel like Elizabeth, like the mother of Samson, and indeed many Biblical figures like Sarah who all experience being barren.  They perceive that they can fulfill God's purpose by bearing children and yet this seems denied them.  If we are similarly frustrated we should take heart.  Just as Mary hears, nothing is impossible for God.  He will enable us to bear all of and exactly the fruit which he desires from us.  We hear from the angel, "yet you will conceive and bear a son."  Are the years we wait wasted?  No.  Everything happens according to the timing of God.  Jesus is only born in the fulness of time (cf. Gal 4:4).  God first builds our hope of redemption.  He first brings awareness that we need salvation.  Only after does Jesus come.  Yet not a moment of history is wasted in God's plan.  Vatican II's Lumen Gentium explains:

Then after their fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved

Let us show due reverence to the messengers of God that reveal his plan.  We can't try to get such a handle on the message that we own and control it.  We need only realize who is speaking and trust him.  Otherwise, like Zechariah, our words may be taken away to teach us to listen to and trust the words from God.  He is so conditioned by his circumstances that he finds himself unable to muster the hope necessary to trust in God.  Samuel's mother knows better.  She does not ask the angel "where he came from".  She trusts his plan.  This is the easier option, so let's choose it.  Let us embrace God's plan for us and rejoice in it.

I will treat of the mighty works of the LORD;
O God, I will tell of your singular justice.
O God, you have taught me from my youth,
and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.
Jesus is the Root of Jesse.  All true authority and power is from him.  He is worthy of our trust and of our praise.

My mouth shall be filled with your praise, and I will sing your glory!