Happy Christmas Eve, friends. We are home in Illinois for the next few days, but will head back to Pittsburgh soon after Christmas to continue packing and dealing with the incessant details of moving. As of right now, we are scheduled to leave our Pittsburgh home on January 12. There is a lot that needs to happen before then—a LOT—and some very important pieces that need to fall into place, so prayers for all that would be appreciated.
Because of this, my newsletter will go on a brief hiatus for the next three weeks. I plan to get one Q&A newsletter out soon after the move and an essay/podcast for full subscribers before the end of January, but that is probably all I can swing for the next month. Come February, however, I’ll return to weekly newsletters.
Taking time off like this is always tough. Inevitably some of you drift away. But there’s just no way around it this time, especially since Chris has to go back to school next week, my deadline for the Word on Fire Children’s Story Bible is fast approaching, and all the packing is falling on me and me alone. Unfortunately, try as I might, I have not managed to bilocate yet. I do hope you understand and stick with me through the next four weeks. And if you want to make sure you don’t miss any essays once they resume, I know of a little red button you can click. 😀
Readings
Reading 1 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
Responsorial Psalm Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29
Reading 2 Romans 16:25-27
Gospel Luke 1:26-38
Reflection
This morning, I am waiting for a miracle. I’m waiting for two miracles, actually. Both are house related. Both are desperately needed.
It might turn out just fine. In six weeks’ time, it might all make for a really good story. But right now, we have a dark and anxiety provoking cloud hanging over a Christmas that was already going to be dark enough.
I am, of course, doing what I always do—trying to make a way. I am brainstorming, calculating, researching, and praying (hourly for good measure). If I were a construction vehicle, I would be a bulldozer. This stubborn choleric determination of mine can be a blessing, especially if you are my friend and discover you need your small home renovated in 24 hours, small apostolate funded for a year, or small wedding planned in a week.
But this trait has also backfired on me more times than I can count. Sometimes I roll over people, not just things. And always, I trust too much in myself, putting too great a stock in my own efforts. My instinct is to lean first on myself and only later on God. I don’t go to Him quickly enough. I don’t ask for help often enough. I don’t receive readily enough. I make so many things far more difficult than they need to be because I am bulldozing my way through life instead of just kneeling before Him and letting Him do what He wants to do for me.
Because of this, my Advents often end up falling short. So much of everything I do—including seeking Him—falls short. I am great at remembering Him and attending to Him. I excel at repenting (practice makes perfect after all). I do a decent enough job of rejoicing. But receiving? That’s where I drop the ball. I don’t just rest and let Him do His thing. I grasp and I strive and I try to do on my own too many things that I simply can’t.
But receiving is what today and tomorrow and this whole blessed season are about. It’s what this life is about. They are about receiving—receiving the Christ Child, receiving grace, receiving a love that is both unimaginable and undeserved.
The importance of receiving is the heart of God’s conversation with David in today’s first Scripture reading. God reminds David that it wasn’t him who bested Goliath. It wasn’t him who defeated the Israelites’ enemies or made himself king. It was God. God built David’s house. God did it all. Left to his own devices, David would have stayed in a field tending sheep.
The same holds true for Gabriel’s conversation with Mary in the Gospel. She is full of grace, but not by her own efforts. She is full of grace because of what she received from Jesus at the first moment of her existence. He saved her first, before the Cross, before the Incarnation, from outside of time, when she was nothing but a bright light in Anne’s womb, too miniscule to even think of claiming credit for her glory.
She also is the Mother of God because of God’s work, not her own. God chose Her and made in her a holy home for Himself, a new Tabernacle and new Ark in which the Presence of God could abide. She didn’t have to strive or fight or steamroll her way to the greatest gift any woman has ever received. She just had to say yes.
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