24 December 2024 - from on high

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;

for he has come to his people and set them free.

Jesus was born to give us true freedom. This was not necessarily freedom from occupying forces but rather freedom from sin. People like the Pharisees had a hard time accepting this because it took humility to admit the fact that one was not free.

"you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?""

Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin" (see John 8:31-34).

But for those who welcomed him Jesus would indeed save them from the hands of their true spiritual enemies, the dark forces of the Devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (see Ephesians 6:12).

The point of Jesus coming to set us free was not only or mostly about what we were being saved from but especially about that for which we were being saved: relationship, "to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life". He was going to transform our relationship with God from one that was necessarily based on fear to one that was based more and more on love. It would first be based on the love of Jesus for us and then on our own confidence in that love which would engender reciprocal love within us. He came to make us sons and daughters of his heavenly Father able to cry out with confidence to "Abba" just as Jesus himself did. 

In the tender compassion of our God

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

If our world seems increasingly to be dark and like the valley of death it can only mean that we are more than ever in dire need of the light of Christmas and therefore the light of Christ himself. Only he is the light which the darkness cannot overcome or even comprehend. He really does want to shine on us and to rise in our hearts like the morning star (see Second Peter 1:19). Let us look to the radiant beams shining from the face of the holy infant Jesus so as to be filled with the peace, joy, and love we need to realize the promises of which Zechariah sung.

Maranatha! Music - Shine Jesus Shine

23 December 2024 - a new name

Today's Readings

(Audio)

they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,

but his mother said in reply,

"No. He will be called John."

There are times when God does in a new thing in the lives of his followers. At such times it is insufficient to merely repeat litanies about how things are now as though there is nothing new under the sun. Yet in order to maintain our sense of control over our lives we try to understand the future in light of the past. There is a certain way in which this can be helpful if we realize that past prepares prophetically for the future. But we tend to assume the future can never really go beyond what we have already seen and known and that the way things are now is more or less how they will always be. Such attitudes impose limits on what we imagine God can do in the world. They make us cheapen our interpretation of prophecies as purely spiritual, unable to impact concrete history. Even when we suggest that perhaps, maybe, God is doing something new by his grace as Elizabeth suggested in giving her son the name John, there will probably be a chorus who responds by telling us we have no right to name a name that hasn't already been named. They tell us to constrain our expectations to be based only on what has already been clearly seen and known.

But they answered her,

"There is no one among your relatives who has this name."

So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called.

He asked for a tablet and wrote, "John is his name,"

and all were amazed.

Zechariah might have been persuaded to remain tethered to the past insofar as it honored him by giving him a child of his namesake. But he had been prepared by the message of Gabriel and by a period of silent reflection which helped him to realize that God was indeed doing something new and to welcome it. 

When God does something new in the world it is not typically only out there and apart from us that he does so. He is usually looking to his people for cooperation. But the first step in cooperating with his plan is what Zechariah demonstrated in today's Gospel. We must be willing to acquiesce to the plan and in fact to speak in agreement with the plan. This is how Zechariah's tongue was freed. It is the difference between Christians who can only say the same old and dreary things that the secular world says and Christians who genuinely have something new and hopeful to contribute. The power of Christians to make a difference in the world comes with their being aligned to the plan of God. And this begins in choosing to think the way God would have us think and to express this thinking in what we say. The world is right to be excited about such language even as the people of Judea asked, "What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him".

We've celebrated a number of Christmases in our lives. Probably for some we weren't even focused on the possibility that God might want to begin something new, to be born in us in a new way. Then, perhaps in other years, after gaining some maturity as disciples, we have looked for this new reality but met with disappointment. Today we can remember that God is not limited by our past. To ourselves we speak the words of the psalm response: "Lift up your heads and see; your redemption is near at hand".

Matt Maher - Canticle Of Zechariah

22 December 2024 - blessed are you who believed

Today's Readings

(Audio)

After giving her fiat to the angel Gabriel Mary set out eagerly to go and visit Elizabeth. No doubt a part of the motivation for this was to offer what assistance she could to her pregnant cousin. But what motivated her even more than that was the desire to participate in God's plan. She was excited about what God was doing in her and what it meant for her people and she was eager to share that with Elizabeth. So too did she likely desire to see and understand more of what God was doing in the life of Elizabeth. There was a natural motivation based on kinship. But there was a supernatural motivation of two people joined together by a kind of divine conspiracy. There would be few people who would understand Mary after her encounter with Gabriel so well as Elizabeth. And there would be few who would understand the blessing bestowed on Elizabeth as well as Mary would. They were able to appreciate the blessings bestowed by God on one another and join together in mutual thanksgiving.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,

the infant leaped in her womb, 

Elizabeth had already been implicated in God's plan by the blessing bestowed on her through the message of Gabriel. Her spiritual sense was thus highly tuned and her anticipation of the redemption of Israel was reaching peak levels. She had not received the blessing of a son as a merely natural blessing but was even then looking to the prophetic role he was to play. Already before being born he made a prophetic gesture that helped Elizabeth to recognize something happening in Mary that could have otherwise been completely hidden. Further indication that she was not operating at a merely human level was the fact that she herself, perhaps as the direct consequence of John leaping within her womb, was filled with the Holy Spirit and moved to speak supernatural words of knowledge about Mary and her child.

and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, 

cried out in a loud voice and said, 

“Blessed are you among women, 

and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

It was not merely excitement or hyperbole that made Elizabeth refer to Mary as the most blessed among women. It was the Holy Spirit. So too it was him who made her recognize that the child within Mary's womb was her Lord and indeed the Lord of all. She was sufficiently humble to recognize the exalted role given to Mary and to see what a blessing it was for her to visit, above and beyond the favor of a relative during a time of need. She seemed to know that it was the new ark of the covenant that had come before her, and that this ark contained the presence of God in a way that surpassed anything the old temple had ever known.

Blessed are you who believed

that what was spoken to you by the Lord

would be fulfilled.

Mary was not a purely passive recipient of divine grace. She responded with a dynamic accent and a living faith. This was what made the grace given to her begin so quickly to overflow into the lives of others whom she knew. It was the case with Elizabeth as it would be again during the wedding at Cana and no doubt throughout her earthly life and indeed beyond. Because she believed in God's promise to her she was able to confidently participate in his plan for the world. What of us? In the first place, do we know what was spoken to us by the Lord, how many and how great are his promises to us? And then second, do we believe them? Not just that we say that we believe them, but are we willing to stake our lives on them? Are we actually doing so? Mary lived her life in a way that would make no sense at all apart from the promises of God. And she teaches all who will learn from example to commit themselves completely to the Lord. For he is always faithful to his promises.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful (see Hebrews 10:23).

John Brownlie - The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns

Matt Maher - O Come O Come Emmanuel

21 December 2024 - in haste

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Mary set out in those days

and traveled to the hill country in haste

to a town of Judah,

where she entered the house of Zechariah

and greeted Elizabeth.

We are often slow to respond to God's will. Even when we have that sense that he is calling us we still treat it as a lower priority and slot it into our schedules if and when it eventually becomes convenient. Works of mercy seem like arduous endeavors for which we are not particularly eager. Even the low hanging fruits of mass and prayer are often perceived more as obligations than as anything about which we are particularly excited. We are Christians, so we do these things. But not, it can usually be said, with haste. Mary was different. She actually appeared to be not only surrendered and committed to the will of God but even excited about it. She had discovered her own role in the story God was telling. And because of the urgency and importance of the overarching story she sensed also the importance of her own role. But this was quality of response was not meant to be unique to Mary. It was meant to mark all who had encountered God as she had, and therefore, eventually, all Christians.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting,

the infant leaped in her womb,

and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,

cried out in a loud voice and said,

"Most blessed are you among women,

and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

It was the presence of Jesus that conveyed to Elizabeth the same excitement which motivated Mary to come as quickly as she did. Elizabeth was not excited and moved to joy by anything superficial or even visible. But her spiritual sense was attuned to perceive the hidden presence of God which Mary brought into her midst. Thus she had not only the happiness of help in her pregnancy, nor only the joy of the presence of a relative and friend, but the all surpassing joy of the presence of God in her midst. Mary was the daughter of Zion, and the first to experience the gladness and exultation of the Lord in her midst. But those to whom she came became in a sense daughters of Zion themselves, part of the people of God in a new and more profound way, as they discovered how close the Lord, whose presence defined that people, had come to them.

My lover is like a gazelle

or a young stag.

Here he stands behind our wall,

gazing through the windows,

peering through the lattices.

How close had God come to his people? So close that the liturgy of the Church can now only represent it with nuptial imagery and in fact with the reading of a love poem. This seems almost unbelievable to those of us who are still perceive God as primary imposing obligations of unwelcome interruption on us. We have little sense that he is interested in our good much less that he might love us to such a degree as in fact he does. But if we are having difficulty perceiving it we can try to be more open to it by asking Mary to bring Jesus more fully into our midst as she did for Elizabeth so that we too can begin to both shout for joy and respond in haste.

Sword Of The Spirit Worship - Our Blessed Hope

Matt Maher - Shout Of The King

20 December 2024 - the test

Today's Readings

(Audio)

But Ahaz answered,

"I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!"

Yesterday we saw that the genuine piety of Mary looked almost indistinguishably similar to the doubt of Zechariah. Today we see Ahaz manifesting an apparently pious attitude that is actually disobedience. In general, putting the Lord to the test is ill-advised. Attempting to force the Lord to act in ways he does not intend or desire is foolish. But when the Lord himself tells one to ask for a sign it is not testing him to do so. Rather the contrary is true. We can put the Lord to the test by the way we act. But we can apparently also test him by what we omit. Jesus refused test the Lord by jumping down from the pinnacle of the temple because this was clearly not what God intended (see Matthew 4:7). But Ahaz tested the Lord precisely by refusing to participate in what God had clearly indicated to be his will.

Ahaz already had other plans and he wasn't actually interested in the Lord intruding in them. He preferred to place his trust in alliances with foreign powers rather than in God. Mary was just the opposite in that whatever plans she had she immediately surrendered, preferring to believe the angel, and to obey the Lord as his handmaid. Both Ahaz and Mary were being asked to reimagine the trajectory of their future in a dramatic way. But Mary was the one who was truly able to assent to this and was thus the one to truly bring "Emmanuel" into the world.

Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.

May it be done to me according to your word."

Yesterday and today's readings both encourage us to guard against using false piety as an excuse that makes us unwilling to participate in God's plan. We often prefer not to change, not to alter course, not to allow God to have a dynamic presence in our lives. And if we are overly clever we may make religious excuses for why we refuse. But excuses are only ever that: excuses. Let us instead learn from Mary to allow God to interrupt our lives when he wills. If we cooperate with his plans for us we too will help bring the presence of God to a world which is desperately in need of him.

Let the Lord enter; he is the king of glory.

Benedictines Of Mary, Queen Of Apostles - O Come Divine Messiah

19 December 2024 - doubt your doubts

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Then Zechariah said to the angel,

"How shall I know this?

For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years."

Zechariah considered his circumstances, reflected on how what the angel had promised seemed impossible, and asked for proof. This was very different from when Mary asked the question, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" (see Luke 1:34). They had in common that they did not understand how the plan of the angel could be accomplished. But while Zechariah demanded proof Mary requested only clarification. In Zechariah we saw an unwillingness to believe but in Mary a willingness to be led. Very different spiritual responses appeared very similar on the surface. But one required punitive intervention on the part of the angel in order to make Zechariah ready to play his part in the plan. The other allowed Mary to be ready to give her full assent to what God desired to do in and through her.

It's always the right choice to trust God because he is God rather than our circumstances, even when they seem impossible to overcome. If we have the word of an angel we can trust that word no matter how great his promises or whatever apparent facts would seem to preclude the possibility of those promises being fulfilled. But we tend to get hung up on our circumstances and implicate ourselves in similar failures of trust to that of Zechariah. It is more seldom that we are able to take God completely at his word as did Mary. This means our souls too may need discipline and correction in order to be fully ready to agree with and welcome God's plan.

But now you will be speechless and unable to talk

until the day these things take place,

because you did not believe my words,

which will be fulfilled at their proper time.

Zechariah was prevented by the angel's intervention from returning to and repeating his litany of disbelief. His negative speech was going to continue to be a problem so he was forced to endure a period of silence and stillness. It would only be when he was willing to speak fully in agreement with the word of God that he would be able to speak again at all. For us as well, part of the reason we have trouble believing all of the promises of God is because we continue to recite our own negative beliefs. We describe a human view of all that is wrong with our circumstances, and why they are stuck as they are, and then we act surprised when the promises of God seem distant and unattainable. We need to learn the lesson of Zechariah and silence our doubts (at least in terms of our speech) and begin to speak in agreement with God's word (and again, out loud is preferable).

If we have been barren of spiritual fruit it does not mean that God has abandoned us. It probably means he is on the edge of unleashing new blessings in our lives, as he did for Zechariah and Elizabeth, and for Manoah and his wife. The reasons for our barrenness, the length it has persisted, none of this is in any way problematic for God. He delights to reveal himself to those who appear to be nothing so that his power may be made evident. So let's prefer silence to telling the same old stories about our circumstances. And let us allow ourselves to be led into full agreement with the truth of God's plan for us.

John Michael Talbot - Holy Is His Name

Marty Haugen - My Soul In Stillness Waits

18 December 2024 - Joseph, son of David

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,

yet unwilling to expose her to shame,

decided to divorce her quietly.

Joseph was a righteous man. Therefore he was not the sort of man that would be assume the worst about someone with the impeccable character of his betrothed. Mary knew in advance that she did not plan to have children the normal way (see Luke 1:34) and so we must assume Joseph also knew it. It is hard to imagine that he suddenly became paranoid and jealous about what he previously believed about Mary. And if it had been for these reasons that he planned to divorce her we could hardly say it was caused by righteousness. It's true that what had come about in Mary was difficult to explain almost to the point of being unbelievable. But a Godly man like Joseph saw this as a sign that he was involved in something that was, as it were, above his pay grade. He didn't want to bring shame upon Mary by his own involvement in something that he did not understand and for which he did not see himself as qualified. 

Joseph, son of David,

do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.

For it is through the Holy Spirit

that this child has been conceived in her.

The angel appeared to Joseph not so much to assuage his doubts about Mary as about himself. For this reason the angel addressed him as son of David, emphasizing the importance of his own part in the story as the one that would provide the link between David and the "righteous branch" that was being raised up in Jesus Christ. The plan was being orchestrated by the Holy Spirit himself. All that was required of Joseph for the time being was the courage to obey and do what he had originally planned, bringing Mary his wife into his home. The Holy Spirit would continue to do the rest as he had thus far.

She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,

because he will save his people from their sins.

Joseph was the one destined to give Jesus the name which is now exulted above every other name, a name that means God saves. This was something that it was uniquely fitting for Joseph, son of David, to do, establishing Jesus as his offspring, but also acknowledging that this child was not only going to save the world generically, but Joseph himself.

Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel

The closer God comes to us the more we sometimes try to excuse ourselves from being involved. Sometimes this stems from genuine piety like it did for Joseph. But often our holy fear is intermixed with less noble motives. We think that rather than something so intense and exulted we might prefer some relaxing entertainment. And if all we had to contribute to God's plan was what we are in ourselves then yes, we might as well opt out. But God is implicating us in a plan for which the Holy Spirit is the one who is primarily responsible. The angel would have us hear similar words to Joseph: "do not be afraid". We should not be afraid to play our part nor to draw near by our devotion to Mary who brought Emmanuel into the world, and continues to help us draw near to him. We should respond to God's call with the promptness of Joseph who obeyed the moment he woke from this prophetic dream.

When Joseph awoke,

he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him

and took his wife into his home.

Jim Cowan - This Is Jesus

Michael Card - Immanuel