[Salvation]

Monday, December 19

Monday of the Fourth Week of Advent

Zechariah the Infant

Children accept miracles without question. They readily believe that God was born in a manger, visited by kings, serenaded by angels. They expect that the desires of their hearts will be fulfilled in wonderful ways.

In adults this openness often disappears. We become consumed with our own apparently insoluble problems. Like Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, we can become so hardened that even an angel from heaven can’t convince us of the power of God.

Zechariah served the Lord for years as a priest, and yet he and his wife were without children. Then, one day, God’s messenger appears to tell him that he would have a son who would be the greatest of the prophets. But Zechariah doubts. “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”

For his lack of faith Zechariah is rendered mute until his son is born. But is not this “punishment” really a mercy? Zechariah returns, in a way, to his infancy. He cannot talk – but he can listen and look and wonder. And when his son is born, this wonder spills forth in a song of praise.

“The dawn from on high shall break upon us!” As we await the coming of the dawn, the birth of Christ, let us pray that we too may be filled anew with childlike wonder!

Reflection based on Luke 1:5-25
Lisa Lickona

Loving Father open me in every way to your power and let me live with the wonder of a child.

[Salvation]

Tuesday, December 19

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

From Another World

The Christian life begins with a fact, not an idea. It begins with something that happens at a particular place and moment. Prior to that event there is no Christianity. There are only the cries of the human heart for something that nothing in creation can satisfy, the cries of Advent.

What the human heart seeks has to come to this world from another world. When this happens, Christianity begins. This happened for the first time in the body of a young Jewish woman, Mary. The Jews were chosen by God to be the bearers of human hopes. Mary was the first to experience the fulfillment of the promises made to Israel, the promises of Advent.

Through her freedom, preserved from the wound of sin, the Salvation of the world became a child in her womb. The “other world” became a presence in this world. The cries of Advent gave way to the miracle of Christmas. What happened on the day of the Annunciation is meant to occur every day of our lives. This is Christianity’s fundamental claim.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the gift of Mary’s freedom, the salvation of the world – Jesus Christ – enters into the very structure of our human world.

It is good to begin every day reciting the “Angelus,” praying that what happened then will happen to us.

Reflection based on Luke 1:26-38
Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete

Loving Father let me live with certainty and hope before the fact of your Son.