Joseph's Dream

Murillo's Nativity

Advent is a season of hope. We can spread that contagious hope.

In the word of God, Isaiah speaks about an ideal leader. Isaiah might be asking us how we exemplify these baptismal gifts in our everyday lives: wisdom (to recognize what truly matters), intelligence (to see what's true), courage (to stand up for what's right), empathy (for the needy), good judgment (to do the right thing for the common good), and wonder and awe (to worship the great God of this universe).

St. Paul in his letter to the Christian community in Rome calls for reconciliation and harmony. Paul asks us to practice virtue: the key organizing principle of a good society!

In the Gospel according to Matthew, John the Baptizer appears with a message of immediacy. He proclaims a turning away from a self-centered to an other-centered, God-centered life, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He says, to the many people coming to him, “I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Our mission – the theme of Advent -- is all about preparing for the messiah by living a God-centered, other-centered life.

During Advent the Word of God focuses on Isaiah, John the Baptist, and the Virgin Mary. All three, in their experience of God, delivered a special message.
Isaiah spoke about a liberator, a savior for us.
John the Baptist pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God. The lamb, of course, references the Passover meal. Jesus is the Lamb who through his death and resurrection creates a future for us, transforming us.
The Virgin Mary is the living temple of God, the ark of the covenant, because she carried within herself the Word made flesh, Emmanuel, God with us.

Joseph also appears briefly in Advent in the infancy narrative. Joseph had a dream in which the angel said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.”

Think about what couples dream when they learn they will be parents. Their first dreams are usually for a safe birth, a healthy child. Then, that their son or daughter will excel. Along the way, dreams may change. Mom and Dad may pray for their child to pass tough courses, recover from an illness, overcome an addiction. Sometimes disappointments or tragedy may change our dreams. But as Joseph learned, the most important things we can dream for children are that they will know we love them dearly, we accept them unconditionally, and we are always praying for God’s grace.

As we prepare for the birth of the Eternal Word of God at Christmas, let us pray for the grace to see God’s presence in all things; to do things as best we can; and to accept people as a gift from God (even if they're not quite the gift we hoped for).

Merry Christmas

Rembrandt's Adoration of the Shepherds

Every year we relive the wonderful Christmas story. The Gospel according to John summed up this magnificent story in a single line: The Word became flesh.

That takes us back in our imaginations to the beginnings of the human family, in Genesis: when man and woman walked with God, had friendship with God and one another. But somehow man and woman lost that friendship, they fell from grace: they hid from God.

But in the midst of ancient Israel’s fidelities and infidelities to the covenant, God never reneged on his promises. And so the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

The Word of God for the Christmas liturgies is like a prism through which is refracted the multiple facets of this great mystery of the Incarnation.

Isaiah proclaims glad tidings: the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Paul writes that the grace of God appeared in Jesus Christ who made us “heirs” to the promise of eternal life. In the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke, the Virgin Mary gave birth to her son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.And the Gospel of John sums up the meaning of Christmas: the Word became flesh. That is God’s greatest gift to us.

Some gifts really transform the lives the people: gifts of teaching, of listening and supporting, of sharing time and experiences, of compassion and forgiveness and affirmation. This begins in our own families and workplaces and communities: enduring gifts that we can always give to one another.

The Word became flesh. That single line changed our destiny. Christmas means not simply God in Bethlehem centuries ago, but God within us. We carry within ourselves Emmanuel, God with us. How? By virtue of the life-giving waters of baptism.We gather to proclaim the awesome Word of God, to celebrate the presence of the living Christ.

That great truth of our faith, God within us, challenges us always to look for the good in ourselves, in other people and in all situations in life.

And who is the ultimate good-finder? God so loved us that he became one of us. Yes, Jesus had a unique relationship. He was God-man. A healer, a teacher, a peacemaker. Think of all the people in the Gospels that Jesus met: the blind, the leper, the lame, the sinner, the forgotten. And Jesus found goodness in all of them where many didn’t.

The promised Messiah has come, He is in our midst mystically in the word proclaimed and the sacrament celebrated, and He will come again in power and glory at the end-time. In the meantime, pray this Christmas season that the Lord will help those who doubt to find faith; those who despair to find hope; those who are weak to find courage; those who are sick to find health; those who are sad to find joy; and those who have died to find eternal life in God.