Friday, December 22, 2006
4th Sunday of Advent
December 24, 2006
4th Sunday of Advent - C
MICAH 5:1-4A
Thus says the Lord: You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah too small to be among the
clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler
in Israel; whose origin is from of old, from ancient times. Therefore
the Lord will give them up, until the time when she who is to give
birth has borne, and the rest of his kindred shall return to the
children of Israel. He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock by the
strength of the Lord, in the majestic name of the Lord, his God; and
they shall remain, for now his greatness shall reach to the ends of the
earth; he shall be peace.
HEBREWS 10:5-10
Brothers and sisters: When Christ came into the world, he said:
"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for
me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said,
'As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O
God.'" First he says, "Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin
offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in." These are offered
according to the law. Then he says, "Behold, I come to do your will."
He takes away the first to establish the second. By this "will," we
have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all.
LUKE 1:39-45
Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of
Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice
and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of
your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord
should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached
my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who
believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."
REFLECTION
The Fourth Sunday of Advent begins a special anticipation that
Christmas is only a day away. Our hearts are beginning to fill up with
joy. And the joy that fills our hearts is the same joy that filled the
heart of John the Baptist in today's Gospel. It's the joy that made him
jump inside his mother's womb when he became aware of the approach of
Mary.
What John experienced and made him jump was a powerful magnetic
presence. It was a presence so powerful that he could feel it with his
whole being. It was a presence so magnetic that he was drawn to it with
every fiber of his existence. It was a presence that we have all
experienced at rare moments in our lives. It was the presence of Jesus
himself.
Psychologists refer to such an experience as a "peak moment." Fr. Mark
Link illustrates this through this true story described by William
James:
"One night a man stood all alone on a deserted hilltop. It was one of
those beautiful nights when stars fill the sky, love fills the heart,
and peace fills the soul. As the man stood there, waves of joy began to
sweep over him. He felt like someone who was listening to a magnificent
symphony. All the notes were harmonizing in a way that made his heart
burst with emotion.
Suddenly, the man began to feel that another person was present on the
hilltop with him. Then a remarkable thing happened. The other person's
presence grew so intense that it became more real to him then his own
presence. Later the man said, 'My faith in God was born that night on
that hilltop.'"
That was a peak experience! It's a moment when, for a brief instant, we
glimpse another world that is infinitely bigger, infinitely more
beautiful, and infinitely more real than the one we live in.
That kind of experience gives us an idea of what Elizabeth meant, when
she said to Mary, "The moment the sound of your greeting reached my
ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy."
Luke intends the movement of the baby in Elizabeth's womb to be a
response to the presence of Jesus in Mary's own womb. Elizabeth's baby,
even in an unborn state, sensed Jesus' presence and leapt for joy. This
previews the powerful impact Jesus will have on people.
In his biography, The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton, the great
author and convert to Catholicism, describes an experience of Jesus he
has in his late teens.
After graduating from high school. Thomas traveled around Europe.
During these travels he discovered Europe's magnificent cathedrals,
with their inspiring statues and stained-glass windows.
He writes: "This discovery was tremendous. I began to haunt the
churches. For the first time in my life I began to find out something
of who the person was that men called Christ." But what is more
important, Merton says, "[I began to experience] Christ himself present
in those churches."
Even if willing it, a person cannot produce an experience of the
presence of Jesus. It cannot be programmed. It cannot be staged or
wished into existence. Nothing can make it happen. It can only happen
on its own. It's a gift from God himself. All we can do is to be ready
for it, to dispose ourselves to receive the gift.
That's what Advent is for. It's a time, when we dispose ourselves for
the coming of Jesus into our lives. We may never experience Jesus with
the same intensity as John did in Elizabeth's womb, or as Peter did on
the seashore, or as the three disciples did on the mountain, or as
Merton did in the cathedrals of Europe. But we do know this much. If we
dispose ourselves for the coming of Jesus, if we continue to try to
open ourselves to Jesus in our lives, the day will come when we will
indeed experience his presence.
"What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered
the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him, this God
has revealed to us through the Spirit."
PRAYER REQUESTS
We pray ...
- for a deep and profound respect for life, especially for the unborn.
- for the healing and speedy recovery of Teri.
- for all the prayer intentions in the MTQ Dailyprayer Diary.
- Birthday: Beatrice Lim Le Hun
- for world peace and reconciliation.
Finally, we pray for one another, for those who have asked our
prayers and for those who need our prayers the most.
Have a good day!
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SATURDAY 3RD WEEK OF ADVENT
DECEMBER 23, 2006
SATURDAY 3RD WEEK OF ADVENT - YEAR II
MALACHI 3:1-4, 23-24
Thus says the Lord GOD: Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the
way before me; And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD
whom you seek, And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.
Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who will endure the
day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like
the refiner's fire, or like the fuller's lye. He will sit refining
and purifying silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, Refining
them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to
the LORD. Then the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem will please the
LORD, as in the days of old, as in years gone by. Lo, I will send
you Elijah, the prophet, Before the day of the LORD comes, the great
and terrible day, To turn the hearts of the fathers to their
children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I
come and strike the land with doom.
LUKE 1:57-66
When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth
to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown
his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they
came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to
call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in
reply, "No. He will be called John." But they answered her, "There
is no one among your relatives who has this name." So they made
signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked
for a tablet and wrote, "John is his name," and all were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke
blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these
matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who
heard these things took them to heart, saying, "What, then, will this
child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him."
REFLECTION
The prophet Malachi-regarded as the last of the prophets- describes
in the first reading events that will precede the coming of the
Messiah. He predicts that one day God's messenger will come to
prepare the Messiah's way. Malachi thought, as the reading
indicates, that the precursor would be Elijah, returned to earth.
Jesus, you'll recall, corrected this notion. He told his disciples
that Elijah would come, indeed had already come, in the person of
John the Baptist. John exercised his ministry in the spirit of
Elijah.
Elijah's commitment was centered totally on Yahweh, the God of
Israel. During his lifetime he struggled fiercely to destroy the
cults of the pagan idols that drew so many of God's people from
Yahweh. John's commitment imitated Elijah's. He went out to the
Jordan dressed like Elijah, and with words as strong and as fierce as
Elijah's. He preached an urgent message of repentance and
conversion.
This John, fearlessly committed to the cause of the God of Israel, is
the baby we see in the Gospel, the reason for the wonder and awe
that "descended on all in the neighborhood, throughout the hill
country of Judea." Elizabeth's delivery of the child, though she had
been barren and was past childbearing age, her insistence that the
child be called John, and Zechariah's support of his wife's choice of
a name though the name John was foreign to their families, and the
sudden restoration of Zechariah's power of speech, all this astounded
and awed the people of the area and set them to asking in
wonderment, "What will this child be?"
What, indeed, will this child be? He will prepare the way for
the "one who is to come" - the child Jesus, his cousin, the child
about whom we will gather in two days' time, who will stir up in us
far greater awe and wonderment.
PRAYER REQUESTS
We pray ...
- for a deep and profound respect for life, especially for the unborn.
- for the healing and speedy recovery of Teri.
- for all the prayer intentions in the MTQ Dailyprayer Diary.
- Birthday: Beatrice Lim Le Hun
- for world peace and reconciliation.
Finally, we pray for one another, for those who have asked our
prayers and for those who need our prayers the most.
Have a good day!
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Feel free to forward this to your friends, family and associates!
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DAILY-HOMILY" group.
To subscribe email: dailyhomily@gmail.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to Daily_Homily-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
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Feel free to forward this to your friends, family and associates!
© 2006 Daily-Homily
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