Don’t Just Take His Word

December 15 Monday the Third Week

NEHEMIA 24:2-7, 15-17; MATTHEW 21:23-27

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

  

What are you waiting for during Advent?

For clarity about how to live? Motivation? The courage to do what you know?

Balaam prophesied: “A star [light] shall advance from Jacob, and a staff [authority, strength] shall rise from Israel.” People found in Jesus “A new teaching  [light] – with authority! [strength].” He is the Life who gives power to follow the Way of Truth. “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mark 1:27).

Do you need light, guidance? Jesus is what you are waiting for. Better: let’s say “who.”

Do you need strength to live by what you already know? Jesus is who you are waiting for.

But you have to interact with him. Challenge him, like the Jewish leaders did in the Gospel. If he challenges you in return, don’t be like them. Answer.

You know he teaches with authority. But you need to understand. So dialogue. Don’t just take his word for it, even though you grant it is true. Argue with him.

That’s called “meditation.” Use the three R’s: Read, Reflect, Respond. That puts you into personal relationship (interaction) with Jesus.

So what are you waiting for?

Accept Jesus as God. But deal with him as human. Get to know him.

Pray (all day):

“Teach me your ways, O Lord.”

Practice:

Take some time every day to discuss Christ’s words with him.

Let him explain things.

Look Within

December 14 Sunday the Third Week

ISAIAH 61:1-2, 10-11; THESSALONIANS 5:16-24; JOHN 1:6-8, 19-28

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Advent is waiting. What are you waiting for?

Are you waiting at all? Do you think that in Catholic teaching and Sunday Mass you have found the true faith? Heard the Good News?

You may have heard it but not experienced it. Unless you have met Jesus Christ. Dealt with him personally. And – let’s use the word – had “mystical experience.”

John said, “I am just a “voice, a witness to testify to the light. He himself was not the light.”

Preachers and teachers are just voices. They cannot give you the experience of Christ or Christianity; they just tell you where to find it.

You find it in the mystery of recognizing Christ within you. Talking to him. Realizing he himself is enlightening you through his words in Scripture. Empowering you through his Spirit to think and act on a higher level, the level of God. In the mystery of surrendering to let Christ express himself through your words and actions. Abandoning all you have and are to the work of establishing his Kingdom.

Then you know Jesus is real to you. When you take him for real.

So what are you waiting for?

Pray (all day): “

Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me.”

Practice: 

Hear Jesus speaking in Scripture; through his Spirit in your heart. 

Express your faith, hope, love to others. 

Work with Christ for change.

Look For a Face

December 13 Saturday the Second Week

SIRACH 48:1-4, 9-11; MATTHEW 17:9, 10-13

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Advent is a waiting time. What are you waiting for?

Are you saying with the psalmist: 

“Lord, make us turn to you;let us see your face and we shall be saved”?

 It is true many seem to have turned away from God – or Jesus, or the Church – in our time. They haven’t found in our religion what they were hoping for.

The psalm continues:

May your help be with the man of your right hand,
with the son of man whom you yourself made strong.

The answer is in a who, not a what. We need to look at the face of Jesus. God as a person. Made flesh. Knowable as a human being.

Of Jesus we say, “Blessed is the one who shall have seen you, and who falls asleep in your friendship.” We can have friendship with Jesus. When we do, as the psalm says:

Then we will no more withdraw from you;

give us new life, and we will call upon your name.

So what are you waiting for?

Life comes through relationship with Jesus. Is yours deep or shallow, personal or distant; interested or indifferent? Your interaction defines your relationship.

Pray (all day):

“Lord, let me see your face.”

Practice:

Interact with Jesus as with any other friend.

Talk to him. Discuss his ideas. Do things for him.

 Ask him to do things for you. Get to know him.

The One in the Many

December 12 Friday the Second Week

ISAIAH 4817-19; MATTHEW 11:16-19

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

What are you waiting for to become a better Christian?

More changes in the Church? A better parish? A special impulse from the Holy Spirit?

Why not start with what is right in front of your eyes? Jesus Christ.

It is Jesus we accept or reject. Not the Church, priests, bishops or popes. Not even other Christians. Those are just excuses for rejecting Jesus.

Jesus said, “This (every) generation” is like children playing “follow the leader,” but who reject every leader. No Christian – clergy or lay – is perfect. But in them all Jesus is saying, “Love me, love my minister! I, the LORD, your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go.”

It’s not about the kind of ministry or example we get from others. It is about finding the truth and way of Jesus hidden in each one. And obvious in the Bible. We can always find Jesus the Way in his example, Jesus the Truth in his words, Jesus the Life in his sacraments. If we look for him.

Being a “Christian” is recognizing Christ.

So what are you waiting for?

Pray (in every encounter): 

“Lord, show me yourself with this person, 

in this person, through this person.” 

(Or with, in and through this event).

Practice: 

Focus on the person of Jesus. 

Accept him wherever you find him.

It is I – I am It

December 11 Thursday the Second Week

ISAIAH 41:13-20; MATTHEW 11:11-15

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

What are you waiting for in Advent?

For God to help you? Answer your prayers?

When God says, “Do not fear, I will help you,” he identifies himself: “I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I. I the LORD, I the God of Israel will answer you, will not forsake you.”

God emphasizes relationship. More important than the fact he helps us is the fact he is our God. That he “holds our right hand.” That he is the God special to Israel. For God, “who” counts more than “what.” The relationship he has with us is more important than what he does for us.

Is it that way with you? Are you looking forward more to Christmas or to Christ? To enjoying “it” or to being with him?

Looking beyond Christmas: is your religion more about what you do or who you know?

Being a “Christian” is knowing Christ.

So what are you waiting for?

Jesus said, “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15). Have you experienced that? Have you been listening to him?

Pray (all day):

“Jesus, you have called me your friend. Teach me to be one.”

Practice:

Form a friendship with Jesus -- the same way you do with anyone else.

Whatever you do or talk about with your friends, do that with Jesus.

Ask him how.

The Yoke of Grace

December 10 Wednesday the Second Week

ISAIAH 40:25-31; MATTHEW 11:28-30

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Advent is waiting. What are you waiting for?

For relief from life’s burdens? For a deep peace of soul that will help you bear them?

The readings say “Be aware!” Awareness is what Advent is all about.

Be aware that nothing is a problem for God. “Lift up your eyes and see!” He “created all these things.” He “does not faint nor grow weary. He gives strength.”

He does it by becoming our yoke mate. He joins himself, with the strength of his divinity, to us in the weakness of our humanity, and together we carry the load. We don’t carry it alone. He carries it with us.

Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

If we have enough trust to get under the same yoke with him, we will find “rest for our souls.” Walking with Jesus is not always easy. But compared to going it alone, he says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

So what are you waiting for?

To be “yoked” with Jesus is to do everything in union with him: his divinity, your humanity working together. Whatever your burden, let him carry it with you, in you and through you.

Pray (all day): 

“Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this though me.”

 Practice:

Whenever you feel overburdened, shift some of the weight to Jesus. 

Lift Up Your Heart – And Voice

December 9 Tuesday the Second Week

ISAIAH 40:1-11; MATTHEW 18:12-14

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Advent is a waiting time. What are you waiting for?

Isaiah says we are waiting for “comfort” when the  “glory of the LORD shall be revealed.”

He tells us: “Cry out at the top of your voice. Fear not to cry out, ‘Here is your God! The Lord our God comes with power.’”

We are charged as heralds of the Gospel to “announce his salvation, day after day.” To “say to all nations: ‘The LORD is king.’” They should find “comfort” in that. Who wouldn’t?

We are the bearers of good news. To the whole world. Jesus said, “It is not the will of your heavenly Father” that a single person in the whole world should miss hearing it. Or that “even one of these little ones be lost.”

So what are you waiting for?

First make clear in your speech and demeanor that you are looking to the future. That you yourself find comfort – peace – in Christian hope.

Then “Fear not” to talk about it. It is more certain than the weather, football scores or election results, and people talk about those. What good is a voiceless herald? Light under a basket? Tasteless salt?

Pray (all day): 

“Lord, make me a herald of your peace."

Practice: 

Respond whenever anyone speaks pessimistically. 

Say there is Good News too.

Don’t be afraid to say what it is.

The Beginning and the End

December 8 (again) Feast of the Immaculate Conception

GENESIS 3:9-15, 20; EPHESIANS ;1:3-6, 11-12;LUKE 1:26-38

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

The man blamed the woman for his sin. The woman blamed the devil. God blamed all three.

It was a defeat: for God and humanity. Making humans free was a risk. God lost. We misused freedom and made our Creator look like a failure.

People still reject God when he allows others to cause them pain by choosing to sin.

But the Responsorial urges: “Sing to the Lord a new song.” Genesis wasn’t the end of the story. Nor are the sins of human history. God “has done marvelous deeds. His right hand has won victory.”

God remembers that “before the foundation of the world, he chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in love.” Mary’s immaculate conception is the promise and preview of our “immaculate conclusion,” when Christ “presents the Church (us) to himself in splendor, holy and without blemish.” Then “all the ends of the earth will see the salvation by our God.”

God wins by forgiving. “He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness.”

At the end, we will all be perfect “in Christ.” Because God has “destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ.”

So what are you waiting for? Strive for perfection now.

Pray: 

“Lord, make me perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.”

Practice: 

Try always to do what is divine, not just human.

The Holy Way

December 8 Monday the Second Week 

(Also the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. See next post.)

ISAIAH 35:1-10; LUKE 5:17-26

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Advent is a waiting time. What are you waiting for?

Is it for “a way out” – of desperation? Or for “a way up” – to union with God? The way is the same for both.

Isaiah says, “A highway shall be there. It shall be called the Holy Way. It shall be for God’s people… no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.”

It is the baptismal way. At Baptism you “became Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 795). Live as Christ. Learn his words as a disciple. Proclaim his values in action as prophet. Share the divine life within you by expressing it as priest. Renew society as a steward of his kingship.

You will see his truth: “blind eyes shall be opened.” You will understand his words: “deaf ears shall be unstopped.” You will be empowered: “the lame shall leap like a deer.” To the paralyzed Jesus says, “Stand up and walk.”

He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. “Be strong, do not fear!” If you want a way out – or a way up,  “he will come and save you.”

So what are you waiting for?

Pray as Christ’s body: 

“Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me.”

Practice: 

Read and reflect daily on his words. 

Ask before acting: “How does this reveal Christ in me?” 

Express physically to others your faith, hope, love. Work for change.

Wait and Hurry

December 7 Sunday the Second Week

ISAIAH 40:1-5, 9-11; 2PETER 3:8-14; MARK 1:1-8

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Wait and Hurry

Advent is conscious waiting. What are you consciously waiting for?

Isaiah says, “The glory of the LORD shall be revealed. All people shall see it together.” Peter promises: “a new earth, where righteousness is at home.” What is holding this back?

“The Lord is not slow about his promise, but is patient, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” For Christ to return, we have to convert the world!

Peter says we are both “waiting for and hastening” the “coming of the day of God… While you are waiting, strive…”

Mark says it too: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” To empower you, Jesus “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” But you have to act.

The “one line” mystery of Christianity is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 12:22). What gives hope is Christ in us. His “daily life” on earth is to act with, in and through everything we do to inspire change –  in minds, hearts, attitudes, values, policies, social structures.

So what are you waiting for?

Peter says, to “hasten the coming, strive to be found by him at peace.” Live, speak, act in a way that shows “righteousness” is already “at home” in you. Bear witness. Give hope.

Pray and Practice: 

Say all day, “Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me.”