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

17 December 2024 - origin story

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ,

the son of David, the son of Abraham.

It's a long list, containing many names with which most of us are not familiar. But this is precisely the case because we are dealing with history, not myth. There is a concrete historical specificity found in the Gospels that has no equivalent in the poetic myths of the pagans. It is true that the author does have an agenda, that being to show that Jesus was the son of Abraham, the true heir of the promise, and the messianic son of David. But Matthew establishes this fact not as a flight of fancy but rather by this laborious genealogy. The idea of a Messiah was rooted in the understanding that the God of Israel really did act and involve himself in human history. The idea that Jesus was the proper heir to the promise made to Abraham came from a religious defined by a God who had shown himself to be faithful to his promises.

Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. 

Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.

Most poets would avoid the particular so as to make the meaning more important. Their stories could easily be generalized in the application, not bound up to one time, or place, or person. But the Gospels achieve an even greater universality of meaning precisely through their insistence on particularity. Although the myths of the poets had deep meanings those meanings never really could touch the concrete particulars of history. They remained ever locked at the level of symbol and abstraction. But by taking on flesh Jesus united the poetic and the historical. He brought into the real world things even better than the best things poets had ever imagined. It took as much in order to save us. Poets could talk about our plight as humans and articulate our need for help and our desire for supernatural aid. But they could do nothing to attain this for us. In Jesus, however, the perfect story of salvation was realized in fact, not in fancy. As has been said elsewhere, if most people in most times and places understood the highest realities in mythical terms it would make sense for God, when he revealed himself, to do so in a way similar to myth and poetry, the difference being that it was actually true.

The scepter shall never depart from Judah,

or the mace from between his legs,

While tribute is brought to him,

and he receives the people’s homage.

What the genealogy of Jesus means for us is that Christianity is not merely a comforting thought or an emotional crutch. It is genuine, concrete, historical hope. Jesus was revealed as the heir to the promises in order to share those promises with us. He was revealed as the Messiah to invite us into a Kingdom which will never pass away or be destroyed. Secular history is incomplete to the degree that it ignores those truths, which is precisely why our world seems so dark at times. But in times of darkness we Christians should cling ever more firmly to the hope we have in Christ.

Matt Maher - Hope For Everyone

16 December 2024 - the problem of authority

Today's Readings

(Audio)

By what authority are you doing these things? 

And who gave you this authority?

They probably would have been happy to have an answer at either extreme. If Jesus was straightforward about his claim to divine authority it would give them something to criticize and possibly even condemn as blasphemy. If he conceded that he had no authority he could be summarily dismissed. Perhaps they assumed Jesus would not have felt free to make a good response since it was hard to imagine a response that could make everyone happy. If he gave an answer that was faltering and incomplete then he would look less appealing to onlookers. 

I shall ask you one question, and if you answer it for me,

then I shall tell you by what authority I do these things. 

Where was John’s baptism from?

Was it of heavenly or of human origin?

Jesus turned them tables on these insincere questioners, as he so often did. It was not he that was concerned with the opinions of others but actually them. It was not he that was unwilling to take a straightforward stand for the truth. It was rather the chief priests and the elders whose answers were calculated and political. Had they been able to respond to Jesus' question sincerely it would have led to a sincere answer to the question they asked at first. There was a continuity between the mission of John the Baptist and the mission of Jesus. But as they had already been tiptoeing around whether or not the mission of John had been authentic they were in no position to hear an answer that Jesus gave about himself.

“If we say ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say to us,

‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 

But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we fear the crowd,

for they all regard John as a prophet.” 

They didn't believe in the baptism of John but they were too afraid of what others thought to say so. How could such ones presume to have a fair conversation with Jesus, when they already had their own unspoken commitments against the ministry of John, a ministry of which Jesus availed himself at the beginning of his own mission? Jesus answered the questions of genuine seekers with truth. But to those who were only playing games he responded by catching them in their own cleverness.

He catches the wise in their own craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end (see Job 5:13).

This Gospel should lead us to consider if we ourselves have been playing games with God. It's better to be honest even about a negative than to become trapped in a limbo of dishonesty. Only truth can lead to progress. Our refusal to be straightforward with God allows us to sustain a lukewarm faith at our own parallel. He very much wants to awaken us from our self-deception and lead us to become people of integrity. He can even make prophets of the most unexpected people to get our attention.

I see him, though not now;

I behold him, though not near:

A star shall advance from Jacob,

and a staff shall rise from Israel.

Marty Nystrom - Awake, O Israel

15 December 2024 - again I say, rejoice

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“What should we do?”

The crowds desired to know what were the fruits that John the Baptist considered worthy of repentance. John himself was known for an extreme ascetic lifestyle, so they might have been afraid to ask. Would he enjoin on them locusts and camel skin? The answer John gave was actually surprisingly simple, and even mundane. To people of different professions he gave a similar answer, seemingly commanding them all to be content without excess. Then they would avoid inflicting suffering on others to satisfy their own selfishness. Then they would even be able to give to those who had not that which they had but did not need. It was reminiscent of what God communicated through the prophet Isaiah:

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (see Isaiah 58:7).

Isaiah was telling God's people how to prepare for the coming of healing, righteousness, and then dawn from on high, the glory of the Lord in their midst. John was similarly telling the people how to prepare and make straight the way of the Lord. This was why the people were so filled with expectation and even ready to accept that John himself was the Christ. He was so close to being the Christ that he too baptized and preached repentance. But he was, as he himself confessed, not the Christ because of the crucial difference. He could not give "the Holy Spirit and fire". When people received the baptism of John they were acting with an implicit desire for the sacramental baptism that Jesus would establish and a wish to be filled with the Holy Spirit that he would pour out, though they could not have said it in so many words. They all stood on the threshold of the coming of the Messiah. And those who embraced the message of John were perfectly situated to recognize the lamb of God when John identified him for them.

John himself was a perfect example of the justice to which he called others. He kept nothing extra from himself, no fame of glory that might have made the Messiah more obscure when he arrived. John was content to decrease that Jesus could increase. The reason for this, we may surmise, was the joy that John found in the Messiah even from his mother's womb. He seemed to be one who was able to do what he did because he gave every potential cause of anxiety over to God "by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving". But we have been given an advantage John never had: the Holy Spirit about which he spoke. That means that we, even if we are the least in the Kingdom of heaven, have the potential to bear spiritual fruit even greater than that of John. If he jumped for joy in the womb at the presence of the Messiah and lived a life of unflinching authenticity because the peace of God guarded his heart then how might we live? Try as we might we will discover no upward limit to the possibilities.

The LORD, your God, is in your midst,

a mighty savior;

he will rejoice over you with gladness,

and renew you in his love,

he will sing joyfully because of you,

as one sings at festivals.

K. Lee Scott - Rejoice, Rejoice Believers

Israel Houghton - Again I Say Rejoice

Newsboys - Joy

14 December 2024 - the forerunner

Today's Readings

(Audio)

"Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"

The scribes may have used the fact that Elijah was supposed to come first as an excuse to dismiss Jesus as a possible Messiah. After all, Elijah's first apperance had been dramatic, shattering the staff of breaad of his enemies and in his zeal reducing them to straits. He shut up the heavens by his word and three times brought down fire. The scribes hadn't seen the return of any chariot with fiery horses. They assumed that such an event would be unmissable. But they were mistaken. 

He said in reply, "Elijah will indeed come and restore all things;

but I tell you that Elijah has already come,

and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased.

Their expectations for both the Messiah and his forerunner were incorrect. They thought God was going to act through such figures with definitive displays of irresistible power. What he in fact did was to appeal through them with an all too resistable invitation.

You were destined, it is written, in time to come

to put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD,

To turn back the hearts of fathers toward their sons,

and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob.

The return of Elijah was not promised so as promised to begin the conquest of the external enemies of Israel. He was to come to help the people prepare their hearts for the coming of the Messiah. He was to give guidance for them to correct the fact that they had been failing to live their most basic relationships in a Godly way. Thus John the Baptist was not known for miracles but for profound moral clarity. Had he performed miracles the scribes might have been able to love him and appreciate him from a distance. But his moral insight offended those who believed themselves to be good enough already. His words made Herod curious. But they were not so interesting that Herod would spare his life on account of the fact that he sensed truth in his voice. In these ways he not only prepared for the coming of the Messiah but also prefigured the ways in which Jesus himself would be misunderstood and rejected.

If the message of John the Baptist helped prepare for the first coming of Jesus so too can it help us to prepare. From him we can be drawn out of our selfish ways consider how we can live our relationships with others in a more loving way. His message can help us even more than his original audience because we have already received baptism of the Spirit and fire by one mightier than he. This baptism has given us the grace to do well and consistently what his original audience could only strive after imperfectly. And it is by no means trite or trivial to suggest that doing what we can to live more virtuously with our family and friends can easily lead to a better experience of Christmas. Christmas is all about family, after all, as God himself became a part of the human family and began to invite women and men to share in the divine life of his own Triune family.

Fernando Ortega - Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

13 December 2024 - the works of wisdom

Today's Readings

(Audio)

'We played the flute for you, but you did not dance,

we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.'

We might have expected God to be less flexible in his music selection. Given his own perfection, would he not simply insist on what was objectively superior regardless of how individuals would subjectively experience it? But it seemed that the music was not being played for the benefit of the one playing so much as for those who heard. It was as though the musician was trying to find something, anything, to elicit a response from the ones listening. To be sure, both the melody of the flute and the song of the dirge communicated something that would benefits the hearers, something that they in fact needed to hear. But in such drastically different arrangements we also see the creativity of a God who desired all to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth (see First Timothy 2:4).

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said,

'He is possessed by a demon.'

Some people found the asceticism of John too extreme. They might put up with some focused devotion and fasting in moderation but when people seemed to be taking things too far they were less accepting. Such lives as that of John the Baptist called others to account for their own lukewarm and halfhearted commitment to God. The easiest thing to do, then, was not to attack the pious practices themselves, but rather the person. If he was crazy or possessed he could be easily dismissed without any undue introspection necessary on the part of those who criticized him.

The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said,

'Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard,

a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'

John was unpopular because he appeared to have a zero tolerance policy regarding sin. But one of the things that made Jesus unpopular was that he seemed to welcome sinners, to befriend them, and even to share table fellowship with them. He was unpopular precisely because he didn't reject those who were known to be sinners and defined as sinners by society. But both John and Jesus desired that sinners repent. This was the message that the preaching of both of them had in common. John, in a way, couldn't afford to do what Jesus did by his fellowship with sinners since only Jesus himself did not risk being contaminated by the company he kept. But the clarity of John about black and white, true and false, and good and evil, helped prepare his own audience to be desirous of one who could finally free them from their sins. The way in which Jesus welcomed sinners allowed them to believe that there could even be hope for them. Thus the very different music of the dirge and the flute were complementary, and meant to lead to salvation. It was only a sort of pernicious supernatural dissatisfaction that could find something objectionable in whatever way God chose to extend the invitation to the Gospel of salvation.

But wisdom is vindicated by her works.

Those who listened to John would eventually be led by him to Jesus whom he pointed out as the lamb of God. And those who came to Jesus would find that the way he accepted and welcomed them led to an inner transformation that they never could have achieved on their own. Zacchaeus heard Jesus say, "Today salvation has come to this house" (see Luke 19:9), and so would all others who welcomed him into their lives.

If you would hearken to my commandments,

your prosperity would be like a river,

and your vindication like the waves of the sea;

Your descendants would be like the sand,

and those born of your stock like its grains,

Their name never cut off

or blotted out from my presence.

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

12 December 2024 - who ark in heaven?

Today's Readings

(Audio)

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.

And how does this happen to me,

that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

In the Gospel reading of Mary's visitation of Elizabeth Mary is presented as the new and definitive ark of the covenant. The language describing her journey paralleled that of David bringing the ark to Jerusalem. They both arose and went and then remained somewhere for three months. At the death of Uzzah who directly touched the ark David was struck with holy fear, saying "How can the ark of the Lord come to me?" (see Second Samuel 6:9). Elizabeth experienced something similar in the presence of Mary, saying, "how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?". David leaped and danced before the ark and John the Baptist leaped in the womb of Elizabeth.

It was said that the original ark contained the rod of Aaron, manna from the exodus journey, and the stone tablets of the covenant. But the new ark contained the one who was himself the living word of God, bread from heaven, and one destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron.

God’s temple in heaven was opened,

and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.

A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun,

with the moon under her feet,

and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

In Revelation we see that the ark of the covenant was revealed to be a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. It doesn't seem like much of a stretch to believe that this too was a reference to Mary the mother of God considering the connections that we have already made. Even if we accept the tradition that Mary did not experience the pains of childbirth, these labor pains could be seen as a reference to the suffering that she herself would experience as Jesus endured his passion to redeem the world. If so, they were another way to describe that sword that Simeon prophesied would pierce her own soul (see Luke 2:35).

What was the point of the ark? No doubt it was lovely. But it did not exist merely for its own sake. The sanctity that was problematic for Uzzah was not simply because of the physical ark, but rather, what it represented: the presence of God. And this was even more true of Mary who brought the presence of God to Elizabeth in a way that Elizabeth had never known before. Presence such as that had never been known in the history of the world until Jesus took on flesh in Mary's womb. 

Even after the birth of her son, Mary desired to help others encounter her son and experience his presence. We see this, for instance, in the wedding at Cana. We see it historically in the many apparitions of Mary, in which her message was only always pointing to Jesus. This is particularly evident to us today as we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. When missionaries could not seem to find a way to reach the Mexican people with the Gospel of Jesus Mary herself intervened and reached them.

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! 

See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD.

Many nations shall join themselves to the LORD on that day

Today we are invited to discover the reason Mary, daughter Zion, had to rejoice. It was precisely because God was coming to dwell among us, as Zechariah wrote. Mary will not rest while we take this reality for granted but will continue to bring the presence of Jesus to our world until all peoples join her song of praise.

Damascus Worship Featuring Seph Schlueter - Hail O Queen

11 December 2024 - a yoke to you

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,

and I will give you rest.

We should not say "My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God". He knows our sorrows and our struggles. He himself is waiting for us to come to him. We are meant to cast our cares on him because of his love for us (see First Peter 5:7). This is meant to be a prerequisite before we can offer comfort to others in turn. He "comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (see Second Corinthians 1:4). So we shouldn't think of ourselves as excessively selfish or needy when we seek the rest and comfort that we are meant to find in the presence of God. We are not the only ones who labor and are burdened. But we cannot give to these others what we ourselves have not first received.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

for I am meek and humble of heart;

and you will find rest for yourselves.

When we insist on bearing only our own yoke, no matter how particularly we craft and curate it, we risk fainting and growing weary though we be young men. Beneath weight we are not meant to bear even youths will stagger and fall. It is only when we take on the yoke of Jesus, a yoke that he himself shares with us, that we find our strength renewed. The key is that it is no longer our own strength but that of Jesus himself that makes us strong. It is then that we learn to say, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (see Philippians 4:13).

It is not the case that the rest given by Jesus leads to inactivity or laziness. It is rather the rest of a futile struggle surrendered in favor of strength and vigor for a grand adventure. We don't end up doing less, but more. But we are not exhausted in this because the power that makes it possible is not our own. This invisible and inexhaustible source of strength is meant to give evidence of God's power in our lives just as it did in the lives of the saints. How was God able to accomplish so much through them? Precisely because they surrendered their own agendas and committed themselves to the yoke of Jesus. They did not rely only on the abilities that they imagined they brought to the table but trusted that Jesus himself would supply any deficiency to allow them to accomplish his purposes.

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness (see Second Corinthians 9:10).

Newsboys - Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)

10 December 2024 - like a shepherd

Today's Readings

(Audio)

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,

will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills

and go in search of the stray?

Some of us might be content with ninety-nine as good enough. We might be able to use the comfort of the large number to forget about the one that went astray. After all, no one made it go astray. It wasn't sheep-napped in this story. Some of us might well think that a straying sheep would only get would it deserved as a result of its choices. But it does not appear that God thinks in this way. He doesn't measure the success of his love on the basis of statistics. There is no number of sheep so large that he would ever forget about even one unique and unrepeatable individual. Nor would the straying of the sheep itself be regarded as a reason to consider it defective and not worthy of care. Just as the prodigal son made a series of bad choices but did not diminish his father's love so too did this ship in no way fall out of favor with the shepherd. It was still worthy of love, worthy of being sought after until it could be returned safely home.

In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.

Lost sheep don't simply find their way back home on their own. They don't get out a smartphone and use Google Maps to locate the sheepfold. The only way they may hope to return is if the master himself seeks them out. But we can see from this parable that our God really is the hound of heaven who will track us to the ends of the earth in order to guide us safely home. He is the very opposite of a despot looking for an excuse to punish us. He himself goes to the greatest lengths possible to procure our salvation.

And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.

The ninety-nine that did not stray would no doubt be invited to join the party celebrating the finding of the one. Would they be willing to do so? Or would they feel slighted by the master apparently paying disproportionate attention to one who, in their eyes, may not have deserved it? There was not hurt or loss to them on account of the generosity shown to the one that wandered. They could in fact delight in its return without having to experience the suffering that came from being apart from the sheepfold. But it was all a matter of perspective. They needed to share in the perspective of the shepherd himself whose very mission was to seek and to save the lost. 

Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;

in his arms he gathers the lambs,

Carrying them in his bosom,

and leading the ewes with care.

Bob Dufford - Like A Shepherd

9 December 2024 - every spiritual blessing

Today's Readings

(Audio)

And coming to her, he said,

"Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you."

Here we read in an obscure way what the Church would come to increasingly understand as Mary's Immaculate Conception: "The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin" (from Ineffabilis Deus, the papal Bull that defined the Immaculate Conception). 

In our first reading we see that the disobedience of Eve was part of what allowed death to enter into the human story. But she was thus implicated because Adam failed in his duty to guard the garden. Although he sat at elbow's length from her when the serpent tempted her his courage failed and he did not intervene. So in a way it was Adam's failure that allowed Eve's fall. But with the Blessed Virgin the opposite happened. Jesus' victory allowed Mary herself to be covered in grace by which she would be able to believe God and obey him. Any normal daughter of Eve would have been too wounded by concupiscence and sin to give the wholehearted response necessary for our salvation. But Mary was to be God's first move in a plan which would realize the reversal of the fall from grace that took place in the garden of Eden.

Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,

and you shall name him Jesus.

We might have expected the new Eve to be a woman Jesus took as his bride, as this would provide, seemingly, a more precise parallel with the first Adam and Eve, except that it was not fitting for Jesus to single out any individual in that way, since he desired to espouse the whole human race to himself. But what he sought for this role was something which he found in Mary (because he himself had given it to her): perfect receptivity to the will of God. It was receptivity which would first welcome Jesus into the world but which was sufficient to extend even to those whom he would make his brothers and sisters by adoption.

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.

The grace of the Immaculate Conception prepared Mary for something more than simple motherhood. She was prepared to be a vessel of God's presence and a tabernacle where he would take on flesh and dwell among us. The Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her even more majestically than the cloud rested upon the tent of meeting during Israel's exodus from Egypt.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us in Christ

with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,

as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,

to be holy and without blemish before him.

Mary was a perfect example of what God intends for all of us to a lesser degree. We have all been chosen in advance, before anything we could do to merit anything, to be recipients of "every spiritual blessing in the heavens". Let us learn from Mary how to be receptive to this grace so that these blessings may be fully unleashed in the world, leading to an increase of the presence of Jesus himself within our world.

All the ends of the earth have seen

the salvation by our God.

John Michael Talbot - Holy Is His Name

Damascus Worship Featuring Seph Schlueter - Hail O Queen

Paul Gibson - Immaculate Mary

8 December 2024 - a voice of one crying out

Today's Readings

(Audio)

A voice of one crying out in the desert:

“Prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight his paths.

Those who came to John were called, not to a public works project, but to an interior preparation. They whose ways had been crooked were called to embrace uprightness and integrity. Crookedness was seen as akin to deceptiveness and treachery whether in speech or in act. It was as though people thought such crookedness could even be so clever as to escape the scrutiny of God. But although for the pure God himself dealt purely, with the crooked he made himself seem tortuous (meaning full of twists and turns) (see Second Samuel 22:27). Individuals were free to follow a crooked way but by insisting on it they would force the Lord to deal with them differently than he would have preferred. Only the straight path of the Lord would manifest salvation. We can see something of how this worked when the generation exiled from Egypt took forty years to make what should have been an eleven day journey. At the time of the preaching of  John the Baptist, about which we read this morning, God desired to manifest his salvation to the world in a new way. He didn't want to leave anyone in exile. Thus this call, through John, for people to prepare their hearts for his coming. Those who who had been in exile, whether physical or spiritual, he desired to lead home "borne aloft in glory as on royal thrones" as Isaiah wrote. Why did people insist on putting obstacles in this path for the Lord? Why do we?

Every valley shall be filled

and every mountain and hill shall be made low.

The winding roads shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth

God invited his people through the prophets to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord into the world. This meant that there was a need for them to get on board with the plan that his coming was going to perfectly accomplish. In Jesus, God was going to cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly (see Luke 1:46-55). The first were going to become last and the last would be made first. This was the ultimate leveling of mountains and valleys that Jesus would accomplish. But the invitation was to prepare our own hearts for this transformation, which would eventually extend to the whole world. Those mountains of pride, vanity, and desire for power needed to be leveled. Those valleys of self-pity, despair, and hopeless, needed to be raised up. None were so exulted that they could do without the salvation of God. None were so desperate that they could not be saved.

I am confident of this,

that the one who began a good work in you

will continue to complete it 

until the day of Christ Jesus.

However, lest we become too overwhelmed by the call of God, we ought first remember that it was his idea and remains ever his own project. Ultimately he is the one who fills in valleys and lays mountains low. Our call is to cooperate, or hopefully at least to consent. In this season when we tend to get caught up in many secular and spiritual things we believe we ought to do it is comforting to know that God himself is so invested in seeing the project that is our salvation through to the end.

Although they go forth weeping,

carrying the seed to be sown,

They shall come back rejoicing,

carrying their sheaves.

John Michael Talbot - Prepare Ye The Way

7 December 2024 - his heart was moved with pity

Today's Readings

(Audio)

because they were troubled and abandoned,

like sheep without a shepherd.

The state of humanity without Jesus was like that of sheep without a shepherd. They were troubled in the way that sheep that wandered and were lost would be troubled. Such sheep did not know where they were going and had no sense of their value. They could intuit that their ought to be a shepherd because they were the sort of creatures that could only live in a fulfilled way if there was a shepherd. But they experienced only absence. If there was supposed to be a shepherd but there was not, why? Had they been abandoned?

At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them

Jesus' encounter with the crowds revealed that the shepherd did in fact desire to be near his sheep, to watch over them, and to care for them. There had been many long and lonely years building up to this. There were many stand-ins and substitutes in the form of prophets who did what they could. But what they could do revealed something greater that they could not do, something that could only be accomplished by Jesus himself. Only he could fully address the needs of the people. Only the mercy of his heart was sufficient to guide the sheep to the green pastures, there to be refreshed and restored.

Jesus went around to all the towns and villages,

teaching in their synagogues,

proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom,

and curing every disease and illness.

What Jesus brought to the crowds in need was the Gospel of the Kingdom. It was not a kingdom of this world in the vein of Rome or Assyria or Egypt. It did not achieve its end through violence or physical domination. But what the Kingdom delivered was thus more consistently and reliable available to all times and places than a kingdom of this world. It did not depend on the rise of fall of worldly rulers. Even in the midst of oppressive earthly kingdoms the Kingdom of heaven was present wherever Jesus, the king, was present. The different sort of power the Kingdom of heaven possessed was manifested in the transformation and healing of those who encountered it. Rather than overcoming armies of human enemies the Kingdom of heaven's power was such that it could defeat even sin and death itself.

Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus,

"Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

As you go, make this proclamation: 'The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'

Before Jesus there were only precursors and preludes to the sort of shepherd God intended for his people. But Jesus desired to extend his own ministry through the world through his disciples in such a way that sheep would henceforth be able to avail themselves of genuine contact and encounter with the shepherd through them. It was for this reason that Jesus taught his disciples to see how his own heart was moved with pity for the crowds and how he responded to them as a consequence. He desired the disciples and their successors to embrace his response as their own, seeking out lost sheep just as he himself had done, and bringing them safely home to the Kingdom.

Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

This idea about giving without cost might have taken a bit of adjustment before it could be embraced. After all, that to which Jesus called his disciples was in fact a lot of work. It would have only seemed natural to try to profit thereby. And this was especially true for disciples who often seemed to think of Jesus and his Kingdom in terms of what advantage they could gain for themselves by their role in it. Instead, they were to learn to be generous, and to freely give, because of the way that God himself had first been generous and given so freely.

No longer will your Teacher hide himself,

but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher,

While from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears:

"This is the way; walk in it,"

when you would turn to the right or to the left.

The closeness and availability of the Teacher described by Isaiah was what Christians were meant to experience in the proximity of Jesus the Good Shepherd. It was this guidance which would never be lacking to those who continually reminded themselves of the truth that, as he said, Jesus would be with them always, even unto the end of the age.

He heals the brokenhearted

and binds up their wounds.

Peter Furler - Psalm 23