This
year, the fourth Sunday of Advent is squeezed in one day before Christmas Eve,
but its message is too important to be neglected. The church's focus remains
upon Mary, the Christ bearer. Mary is the ideal image of all humanity, willing
to receive and give birth to the divine through her life. In Mary's story the
image is that of actual childbirth, but in our story what does recognizing and
giving birth to the divine look like?
I
think it looks like times of quiet and stillness
when we sense a vibrant communion with all of life around us.
I think it looks like what Christi Brewer
Allen is doing through the Church of Goodness, or what Jeff Newton, Ruth
Lawson, and others are doing through the compassionate work helping the
under-resourced and struggling in our city.
I think it looks like what the St. Andrew
kitchen looked like last night filled with joyful people preparing a Christmas
meal for others.
I think it looks like forgiveness winning
over a grudge, compassion winning over apathy, acceptance and understanding
winning over judgment, creativity over mockery.
I think giving birth to the divine in any
life looks like a life as it was intended to be lived...in kind co-habitation
with all who share their little piece of the planet.
So whether its Nazareth, Bethlehem, or
Kokomo, may the divine in our life be given birth through our lives, just as it
was in Mary's.
Fr. Richard
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