December 12, 2017 – Tuesday in the 2nd Week of Advent
Today’s Feast: Our Lady of Guadalupe
Scripture options for today’s Liturgy
Zechariah2:14-17 0r Revelation 11:19a, 12:1…10 / Judith 13:18…19 /Luke:26-38 or Luke 1:39-47
As an opening to today’s reflection I have to say: if you can’t find anything in meaning from all the above choices of scriptures for today’s feast I don’t know what more I can do! When I was growing up in Catholic grammar school I can remember the nuns telling us that Mass was being celebrated – somewhere in the world – at every moment of the day. This gave me a confidence that my Church was bigger than just me who was living in Oakland, California in the United States of America. Now days, the Mass is still the same but the celebrations might differ depending on where you are living. In the USA Our Lady of Guadalupe is patroness of the Americas and today is a Feast Day. For the rest – in different parts of the world – the Advent Journey continues with the appointed readings for the day. As I was preparing today’s reflection I found myself jumping back and forth from one set of readings to another and getting on the verge of frustration: “Which way am I going to go? How do I come up with words that speak to the Universal Catholic world? The key seems to be a focus on Mary, the “rose blooming” in the cold and dark of winter, which certainly figures in with our Advent themes. Nobody knows the exact date of the Birth of Christ. We can almost pin it down to the year – which I think comes out to be 6 BC. Ironic that Jesus is born six years before Christ! Still, the Church celebrates the Birth of Christ just after the Winter Solstice when the days are beginning to get longer so that Jesus can say, “I am the Light of the World.” That’s also why the Church celebrates the Birth of John the Baptist on June 24th – just after the Summer Solstice when the days are getting shorter – so that John can say, “I must decrease so that He (Jesus) can increase!”
My bottom line in today’s celebration would be to rejoice in our Church which goes to great efforts to make our celebrations connect to us on a variety of levels so that it is possible for us to celebrate divine events with some grounding on the reality of our world where we live and have our being. As we continue our Advent Journey let us pray that we can always be open to the Lord touching our lives in a variety of way which – hopefully – draw us closer to the reality of knowing His abiding presents to us as we try our best to follow the path that will ultimately lead us to Glory! “Come Lord Jesus!” Amen!