God's Gift

Again we hear the Gospel of the Annunciation on this Fourth Sunday of Advent.  We are drawing closer to the Holy Night when Christ was born.  This year we have a good part of the week to finish up our preparations, our decorating, our cooking, our shopping, before Christmas.  We might find in those days more time to pay fuller attention to what Christmas is all about:  The birth of Jesus is announced to an insignificant young country girl in her early teens, in a village of no renown. No great hoopla.   In a great leap of faith, she accepts this mysterious proposal of becoming pregnant, not in the usual way, but by the power of God and thus becoming the mother of God.  Her child is not of her and Joseph, but of God!  He is the Gift of God not only to Mary and Joseph but to all of us.  He enters our humanity, our world, fulfills his mission of redemption through his passion and death, leaves us a pattern of behavior, "rule" to follow so that the true love of self-sacrifice can build a Kingdom worthy to be returned to God the Father at the end of time.  When his work was done, he does not leave us, by stays with us in the Eucharist and is present in our hearts through our baptism.  In addition he leaves us his mother to continue to nourish us and lead us to her Son.  How immeasurable is God's Gift? How worthy of all the praise and glory we can muster in our Christmas festivities!
Bro. Rene