The Catholic Calendar for Thursday, December 9, 2004
Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
St. Juan Diego

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 41:13-20
Psalm 145:1,9-13
Matthew 11:11-15

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"Whoever has ears ought to hear." (Matthew 11:15)

This Advent season should be a time to prepare our hearts to receive anew the infant Jesus, the little child God sent to lead us on the path to true life on earth and throughout eternity. Our greatest obstacle is complacency, being convinced that we can be pleasing to God without regular, sincere prayer seeking to learn what He expects of us. It is not "wonderful works" nor showy deeds of piety that He desires. We are to come before Him with the humility of an infant, naked and destitute, like Christ, totally dependent on both His earthly parents and His heavenly Father.

Though fully God, Jesus was also fully human; He came to us as the love and truth of God personified, but also, being in human flesh, He experienced hunger, thirst, pain, fear, anger, disappointment, affection, the full gamut of human needs and emotions. Though remaining sinless, He was compassionate toward us; for He was tempted in the same ways as we are. Yet in His humanity, He was also totally imbued by the virtues and power of the Godhead; and He was sent to us to lift us out of our sin and give us the grace enabling us to participate in the goodness of His Divine Life. If we consent to being reborn to His new life, then we must undergo the same transformation needed for an infant to achieve adulthood, a maturity reflecting the virtues He taught us.

John the Baptist's "greatness" was his recognition and proclamation of Jesus' identity as God's Messiah, the very Word of God Who brought us into being and in Whom we must live. False prophets will try to violently tear us away from God's kingdom, but through genuine faith, hope and love like that of the Baptist, we will be saved.

O Redeemer God,
pour out Your grace upon us
that we may become teachable children,
hungry to learn Your truths
and practice them in Your love.
Amen

- Marie Bocko, OCDS
(mlbocko at earthlink dot net)

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posted by joachim at 4:40 AM