As the whole world prepares to celebrate Christmas I think is
good and convenient to pause and
consider the real need, the real desire we all have in our lives. This
need, this deep desire is the need for the presence of God[1].
The need for God’s presence in my life, and in all our
lives becomes quite obvious when we consider the power of sin within us and
among us. There are times when, as St. Paul says in the Letter to the Romans,
the forces of darkness appear to domineer us. Who can save us from these, who can save us from ourselves? St.
Paul asks. Then he answers, the grace, presence and life of Jesus Christ
alone can save us. His very name, Jesus, means, God saves us. He saves us from our sins. He saves us from ourselves.
When we consider our need for God’s presence and the
world’s need for God’s presence, our desire for God deepens. We work so hard to
provide the very best for our young people, our children, our families, and our
neighbors. Yet, we continually run into problems that we have no way of
preventing. The effects of the power of darkness are all around us. All of us
encounter situation after situation. We must call out: Come Lord Jesus. Come
and deliver us from these dilemmas. Come and restore the world to your original
plan where people would not suffer the deadly effect of sin.
The Advent prayer is the prayer of the Church
throughout the ages: Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus[2].
Yes, the Lord did come 2000 years ago to begin the
transformation of the world. And yes, the Lord continues to come to us on our
altars and in Word and sacrament, but the transformation of the world has only
begun. The Lord promised us that he will come again to free us from darkness.
And so we still pray 2000 years after the first Christmas, Come Lord Jesus!
To understand deeper our eternal desire for the Lord
to come again, let’s focus back to that time 2000 years ago in Palestine as
Joseph traveled with his pregnant wife Mary to his ancestral city of Bethlehem.
Joseph was a member of the family of David. David had been told in today’s
first reading: Your house will stand
forever. But there was no descendent
of David on a Jewish throne. All
those, like Joseph, who could trace their lineage to David were just common
folk now. They and all of Israel were oppressed by the Romans. The people were
being led into immorality by these pagans and the Syrian and Greek pagans who
proceeded them. Those who tried to be faithful Jews were subjected tot he
rigorous laws of a dead and hypocritical temple cult. They witnessed the one
Jewish ruler, Herod the Tetrarch, act as morally degenerate as the pagans. Joseph and the people of his time felt
darkness around them. They called
out to God to come, come and set things straight in this twisted and deformed
world.
It was to one of these faithful Jews that the angel
Gabriel came. He called her full of Grace. He told her that the Lord was with her and that she was
blessed among all women. Right there, in these words of Gabriel, we learn
everything we need to know about Mary. She was united to God from the first
moment of her existence. She was full of Grace. She was the one who was chosen,
blessed among women. She was the
one whose desire for God was being answered. The Lord was with her. Mary was so open to God that she could
receive the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit during her normal day. She didn’t have to journey to the
Temple to experience God. She
lived in his presence. Pope St.
Leo put it this way: “Mary bore God in her mind before she bore him in her
body.” Her desire for God, in fact, was so intense, that she immediately
responded to the angel’s message. She immediately set into motion the very
action of our salvation.
This desire that the ancients had for God, this desire
that Mary had to be his handmaiden, leads me and us to ask, “Do I really desire
him? Do we desire him? Do we crave
his presence to come and return our world to his original plan? Do we really
want our lives to be transformed by the presence that we celebrate on Christmas
Day.”? My brother, my sister, we cannot live without Jesus Christ. Well, we cannot live a meaningful life,
a life worth living, without God. If we are satisfied with whatever the world
has to offer then we are just puppets of our environment and misfits of
creation. If our Christmas becomes a celebration of things and not a spiritual
celebration of the presence of Christ, then our Christmas will just be a yearly
exercise of summoning up the proper emotions, another day of empty smiles,
another day that will come and go without affecting us.
“Our
hearts were made for you, O Lord, and they cannot rest until the rest in you[3].”
St. Augustine had it all together. We are always longing. We are always
seeking. We always desire. But the only desire that fills us is the desire for
Christ. And so, we pray, Come Lord
Jesus. We are given the celebration of Christmas to come closer to God. We are given this feast to recognize
that he alone can answer our needs.
Take time this week. Make time this week. Make time on
Wednesday evening, the holiest night of the year, to talk to God about what we
all really need, His Presence, His Love. Take time to ask God to come, come and
set things straight. Take time to join the Church of every generation in
praying: Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus[4]■
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