This is the week before Christmas. What it is all about is awareness, which is the first phase of growth into the fullness of life that Jesus came to give. Advent alerts us to look forward to the “blessed hope and the manifestation (the liturgy says “coming, advent”) of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Christmas is all about Jesus as Savior.
Saturday (O Wisdom) focused on Jesus as the measuring rod of perspective who “shows us all things framed between their beginning and their end.”
Sunday’s readings make the point that Jesus is a divine Savior who came to give us divine life — not just human wellbeing.
Monday (O Offspring of the Root of Jesse) tells us Christ’s human-divine presence in our up-and-down world (and Church) as a contining member of our sinning race gives us hope.
Tuesday (O Key of David) says the Key to Christianity and Christian living is Jesus leading us out of the “prison” of merely human perspectives and into the freedom of “divine-dimensional” life.
Wednesday (O Rising Dawn) tells us God made human in Jesus is the divine, eternal light of God shining in a new way every day through the changing atmosphere (circumstances) of human life on earth — and through the diversity of his human members’ responses to different situations.
Thursday (O King of Nations) shows us Jesus “politically involved” in bringing unity, peace and happiness to earth by giving us divine gifts that work independently of human power and circumstances — if we remain aware of them and use them.
Friday (O Emmanuel – “God-with-us”) caps our preparation for Christmas by pinpointing the essence of Christianity, which is “God with us.” Paul said the mystery he preached was simply “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
The Christian greeting repeated in the Mass liturgy as “God be with you” is an edited version of the Latin “Dominus vobiscum,” which simply says, “God with you.” That is the whole Christian message in a nutshell. When we answer, “And with your spirit,” we are not narrowing our focus to some kind of spiritual presence of God just in our “souls.” We are calling each other to be aware “in spirit” that God is present in our bodies as well as in our minds and hearts. By Baptism we became the “body of Christ.” He speaks in our human words, touches people with our human hands, helps them through our human actions. We are “Emmanuel” — God still with the human race, God still in the world in human flesh as one of us.
When we say the WIT prayer — “Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me” — we are reminding ourselves of the core truth of our religion, “God with us.” God with us, not just as a companion by our side, but as dwelling within us, acting in us and through us as his own body.
The body born at Bethlehem was just the beginning. Jesus is “born again” every time a baby is baptized.
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