Sunday, December 20, 2009

The home stretch

Monday, December 21, 2009

The Joyful Mysteries

Song of Songs 2:8-14 or Zephaniah 3:14-18a

I know I wrote (sort of) about Mary’s visit to Elizabeth yesterday, but the story is so rich and holds so many different paths for meditation, that I thought I would try another path today.

Here we are in the home stretch of Advent. Christmas is almost here. We wait in anticipation. Waiting to rejoice. Advent seems to be about waiting. I love the Advent season. Which is weird, because I have to admit, I hate waiting. I’m just not very patient. If I walk into a restaurant and there is a line, I don’t even ask how long the wait is. I just leave. I’m influenced way too much by our immediate gratification world. And yet life has taught me that waiting can produce the most wonderful rewards. In fact, sometimes waiting seems to make the thing we are waiting for more important and as a result we place a higher value on it.

Pregnancy is all about waiting. Why else do you think God designed the procreative process to include a nine-month “waiting period”? And why scientists should not be playing around with those technologies that circumvent that?

One wonders how Mary felt so many years ago. Anticipating. Wondering. Anxious. Obedient to God’s will. Waiting to rejoice. As we do. Waiting to rejoice and celebrate the most important event in human history. God coming into the world as a child. What an incredible miracle. What a wonderful gift. Truly something worthy of rejoicing. And, until then, we wait.

I know that for some, Christmas is not a time of joy. The commercialization of Christmas can breed cynicism. The holiday preparations can be overwhelming. In fact, for some, Christmas can be a sad, lonely time.

My prayer this day is for those of us who rejoice to share our joy. Share a smile, a moment, a meal, a gift. And especially share the reason we rejoice with someone who needs to hear some good news. Merry Christmas.

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"I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it.

I am giving you three ways of exercising mercy toward your neighbor:
the first — by deed, the second — by word, the third — by prayer. In these three degrees is contained the fullness of mercy, and it is an unquestionable proof of love for Me. By this means a soul glorifies and pays reverence to My mercy.

Many souls ... are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul.

If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment. Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasure for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall My judgment with their mercy".