My parents were not wealthy.
Not in the financial sense, anyway.
So, every birthday or Christmas that rolled around, the phrase “Good
things come in small packages” was used often as we children voiced our
preference and waited in anticipation for the newest gadget or biggest present.
When we heard that phrase, it was a “code”
to let us know we were probably not going to get what we wanted, but more than
likely what we needed. In time, my
brothers and I learned that what we needed was much more satisfying than what
we wanted.
That memory was the first I thought of while listening to
the 1st reading at mass this morning.
The first reading talks about the little town of Bethlehem
that seemed too small and insignificant to make any difference for anything but
is remembered and revered (and sung about in Christmas carols) to this day as
the birthplace of the savior whose “greatness shall reach to the ends of the
earth; he shall be peace.”
In the Gospel, when the pregnant Mary visits the pregnant
Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s baby (who will be John the Baptist) recognizes the Lord
who will be born this week. The baby leaps for joy in his mother’s womb. John will be the voice in the wilderness
preparing the way for the Lord. And we spend Advent making our spiritual and
secular preparations.
This week is Christmas. In present tense we celebrate his
birth. We should leap for joy today in anticipation of “Great gift” of the “Little
Child” born of the “Little Woman” in the “Little Town” of Bethlehem Who will
save us. The Lord is come. This week the Lord is born, and he continues to live
in our lives and in our hearts.
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