Inhabit the Moment

Mary stopped what she was doing and listened to the angel, to the message. She “inhabited” the moment, she lived in the moment, not in her yesterdays, not in her tomorrows – but in the moment. And she heard God’s word to her, God’s amazing invitation for her to be the Mother of the Son of God. God’s word to each of us will be different and the very fact that God wants to reach us is amazing in itself. So I wonder… will you and I find a time and place this week to “inhabit the moment?” to stop the busyness and listen and pray and listen some more, maybe even to look for “an angel in the doorway.”

“Behold,” Fourth Sunday of Advent

“Behold.” The word says what it all. Underused, but colorfully trustworthy. The curtain’s been lifted. There are no strings attached. There is no agenda. The package has arrived. The fat lady just sang. The boat’s docked. The alarm went off. It’s one word that startles you from whatever you were thinking or doing. “Behold.”

It’s a new word in the Catholic Mass that replaces (ready for this!)“This.” Doesn’t that sound like a good change from this unchanging Church? Which word captures and holds your breath, even for a moment – “Behold” or “This”?

“‘This’” is your dinner bill.” Now that usage makes sense. A waiter doesn’t deliver the bill to you saying, “Behold!” unless you’re paying for a party of ten.

A Response to Change History

“Let it be done to me according to your Word.”  The history of the world turned on that line.  All that God planned to do to save us, the gift that divine love wanted to give us hung on Mary’s response, on her willingness to cooperate.  Her choice was a free choice, for Mary could have said “no”.  It would have been easy to find many reasons to say “no.”

She could have responded to Gabriel by saying, “Wow!  This is unexpected. Sort of out of the blue.  How long before you need my answer?  I’d really like to think about this.  I know that God has a plan, but I’m rather upset about being brought into it at the very last minute.  You might want to suggest that if God expects human cooperation… 

HOMILY CONNECTIONS:

The mystery of the incarnation is what we celebrate. Our celebration is incomplete if it does not derive from this mystery. The second reading mentioned Jesus Christ as the mystery kept secret for endless ages. What this means is that it is a mystery that must be kept alive in our celebration of Christmas. Our joy and happiness at Christmas must derive from the incarnation. What we celebrate is the fact that God took our human flesh in order to save us from what would have overwhelmed us. The incarnation is the humility and love of God expressed in order to give meaning to human life.

The Word in Mary’s Ear and Ours

Mary said “Yes!” to the Word in her ear and became the Mother of God. That same Word of God whispers into our ears, yours and mine. He calls us to continue the transformation of the world. He calls us to make the Savior real to those who long for his presence. Will we reject the Word and force Him to look for another ear? Will we obey grudgingly and limit His action through us? Or will we make a decision for the Lord, and offer ourselves totally to God?

In the Gospel for this Fourth Sunday of Advent, we step back nine months to March 25th, the feast of the Annunciation, an all-but-hidden event that changed the world. God, whose focal presence departed the Temple just prior to the Babylonian invasion (cf Ez 10:18) and the loss of the Ark of the Covenant, now returns to the ark of Mary’s womb. The glorious presence of God returns now to His people, in an obscure town of fewer than three hundred, a town so small that no road led to it.

Let’s look at four aspects of this Gospel.

To give God the glory is a message which runs through today’s readings. For instance, in the second reading, St. Paul gives glory to God through Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25-27). Similarly, in the first reading (2 Sam. 7), King David, in appreciation of God’s blessings, decided to build a temple to the glory of God… Likewise, the Blessed Virgin Mary had decided to lead a life of dedication to the glory of God (Luke 1:26-38)…

Clergy E-Notes

“…if the family is the sanctuary of life, the place where life is conceived and cared for, it is a horrendous contradiction when it becomes a place where life is rejected and destroyed. So great is the value of a human life, and so inalienable the right to life of an innocent child growing in the mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life, which is an end in itself and which can never be considered the “property” of another human being.”

— Pope Francis

The Announcement

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The announcement to Mary that she is to be the mother of the Son of God has been the subject of many paintings. Of course, Mary is there, as well as the angel Gabriel who brings the message and a perhaps surprising dove. Mary is surprised that she is to be the mother because she is a virgin, but Gabriel tells her that the Holy Spirit will bring this about. That explains the dove, which is often used as a symbol for the Spirit. The Holy Trinity — Father, Son and Spirit — are at work here to bring about the salvation and renewal of the world.

Abandoning Ourselves Totally to the Will of God

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily during a Mass for Diocese of Little Rock seminarians at the House of Formation in Little Rock on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014.

Seminary is a time of discernment not about what option to choose, but rather about how to respond fully and faithfully to your humanly impossible God-given call and thereby embrace freely your role in God’s plan … whether the fact that your call to the priesthood was already revealed to you (at least some level) early in life, or like Mary revealed to you as a teenager (perhaps in High School or maybe on a Search retreat), or later — like Jack Sidler who had one role as husband and father early in life, and now a new role as priest much later. But in all cases, it is a matter of embracing God’s will freely like Mary did, abandoning ourselves totally to the will of God: “May it be done to me according to your word!”

God Always Fulfills his Promise

Bottom line: Confident that God always fulfills his promise we join Mary in saying, “May it be done to me according to your word”..

God keeps his promise, often in extraordinary and surprising ways. St. Paul speaks about “the mystery kept secret for long ages but now manifested through the prophetic writings and, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations…”

This is the mystery we celebrate in just a few days. God always keeps his promise. He often does it in ways that go beyond our expectations. We are now accompanying Mary and Joseph on the road to Bethlehem – the City of David. We greet Mary with the words of the angel, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” 

Mary’s Amen

It is a great joy for a mother to give birth to her baby. The great moment comes after weeks of anxious expectation, highs and lows, getting clothes for the new baby, preparing everything necessary. Because the mother carries the baby in her womb, there is a special bond between the mother and child. During Advent we have been thinking of Mary bearing Jesus in her womb. During Advent we remember Jesus growing silently and invisibly in Mary’s womb. Now on this last Sunday of Advent we think more particularly about Mary.

This is My Body

Where is the proper place for God to abide? Where can we find the Most High? Perhaps these were the questions that David asked of himself and his adviser Nathan, because the king was disturbed to be living in a cedar palace while God’s ark was confined in a tent. Although Nathan assured David that God was with him no matter where he might go, it was only Nathan’s night-time revelation from God that could make the case: “Why should you build a house for me? I have been with you no matter where you have been. And I will build an even greater house for you.”

Open Your Hearts for Christmas

David is worried about the fact that he was sleeping in a palace while the Ark of the Covenant was outside in the traditional sacred tent that had always been used to shelter the Holy of Holies. David asks 2 God if he could build Him a temple, a noble House of God, for the Ark. I find God’s answer to David to be entertaining. God essentially tells David, “What? You build me a house? Listen, it is I who build you a house. It is not you who build me a house.” That effectively put David squarely in his place. That God chose to be born of a peasant woman in a manger surrounded by animals and shepherds rather than in a temple of a noble family is also a similar commentary I believe on what God thinks about the human race.

And so what does this mean for us as we come close to the celebration of our savior’s birth? What can it mean? I think, first of all, we are invited to slow down, just slow down and gain perspective…

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