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“If you want to make God laugh,” said St. Teresa of Avila, “just tell him your plans!” What God laughs at
is when we put our cart before our horse. We make our plans, we do whatever it is we want to do, and then
we expect God to accept our decisions, bless them, and help them to be successful. As Christians, what we
should do first is ask what God’s plan is, and then pray for the grace to carry it out.

This was a lesson king David had to learn in today’s first reading. He had decided that he would build for God a great and beautiful Temple in Jerusalem. This seemed to everyone, including the prophet Nathan, like a good and worthwhile and noble thing to do. The problem was that this was not God’s plan for David. God did have plans for David- very great plans that included a covenant with David’s family that would culminate in the birth of Jesus. Nevertheless, God wanted David’s son Solomon, and not David, to be the one to build a Temple. So David had to surrender his plans to the plans of God.

This is what God calls us to do as well. He asks us to surrender our plans and take on his. Consider Mary. I wonder what plans she had as a young girl. Did she want to have lots of children? Did she imagine growing old in the company of a husband and a big family? We’ll never know, but it’s possible. However, whatever plans she may have had all came to an end when the Archangel Gabriel appeared and announced that she would conceive and bear a son named Jesus.

Mary might have said no. She was a free person who could make her own decisions. Some of the earliest Christian writers spoke of all heaven and earth holding their breath, sitting on pins and needles as they awaited Mary’s decision. But of course Mary did say yes. “I am the handmaid of the Lord,” she proclaimed. “May it be done to me according to your word.” Mary had surrendered her plans for God’s. As the Opening Prayer for today’s Mass said, “…the Virgin Mary placed her life at the service of (God’s) plan.”

In a word, Mary was obedient. Her obedience is an example to us of how we should be obedient to the plan of God. In fact, in a certain way Mary’s obedience made it possible for us to be obedient. In today’s second reading, from his letter to the Romans, St. Paul told us that the Jesus’ revelation of God was made “to bring about the obedience of faith.” Yet that would not have been possible without the obedience of Mary.

Mary willingness to surrender her own plans for the plans of God presents a challenge to us. Mary challenges us to think about whatever plans we’ve made and dreams for the future we have. Consider, for instance, the plans you have for the new year about to begin. Plans about your job, your family, your relationships, your education, your home. Think about the purchases you plan to make, the vacations you hope to take, the volunteer commitments you expect to accept, any medical or health procedures you intend to undergo. Then ask yourself: Is it really God’s will that I do these things? Have I placed these decisions before the Lord? Did I ask if they will help build up God’s kingdom and help me and or my family grow in holiness? Were my plans prayerfully made? Did I ask for God’s help and direction when I made them?

We can’t automatically assume that whatever we’ve planned is consistent with God’s plan, even if our plans were made with the best of intentions. That’s the way King David thought, and he wound up being surprised. We need to have the openness, and the humility, to accept that some of our plans may not necessarily be the same as God’s. As has often been said, our God is a God of surprises and he acts in mysterious ways. Just ask a guy who wound up being a married Catholic priest. Or better yet, ask my wife!

Another question we should ask ourselves is: Am I willing to surrender the plans I have to God? Am I
willing to give them up if he wants me to? For instance, what if our  health changed and prevented us from
carrying out my plans? What if we had to suddenly care for a sick relative? What if God blessed us with a
new child? What if our circumstances changed or the money just wasn’t there? What if a long-time plan
and our conscience came into conflict? Would we be willing to give up our plans with peaceful
resignation? Or would we resist, run away, make bad compromises, or sink into anger and bitterness? If
that’s the case, then we don’t just have a plan. We have an idol.

It can be hard to surrender. Surrender involves sacrifice; saying “Yes” to God often means saying “No” to something else. Sometimes our pride gets in the way. We want to call the shots in our life. We believe we know what’s best for us better than everybody else, even God. At other times, our fears hold us back. We’re afraid of the unknown and we don’t like moving out of our comfort zones. Surrender can require a lot of courage and trust and love. Even Mary had questions. And Gabriel had to tell her not to be afraid.

Thankfully, God always gives us the strength we need; his grace is always sufficient to the task. As we heard St. Paul say: “To him who can strengthen you…be glory for ever and ever!” Gabriel assured Mary, “nothing will be impossible for God.” And nothing will be impossible with God. God may indeed laugh at our plans. But he smiles when we embrace his.

Image Credits: Wikipedia Commons, Wikipedia Commons

A big change has taken place in my household: no longer do plain white lights hang on our Christmas tree. They’ve been replaced by good old-fashioned colored lights- big ones! And I love it.

We see lights everywhere this time of year. That’s why it’s sometimes called a “season of light.” But all these lights should serve to remind us of the great light who entered our world at the first Christmas. All other lights point to him.

Jesus said as much in today’s gospel. He spoke of those who rejoiced in the light of St. John the Baptist, whom he described as a “bright and shining lamp.” But then Jesus explained that John’s light was meant as a beacon for the greater light which he came to bring. A light which, as Isaiah told us in today’s first reading, revealed God’s salvation and justice, and extended God’s covenant of love to people of every race and nation.

I hope we enjoy all the lights we see this season- white and colored, blinking and not. But let’s not forget that the light we rejoice in above all others is Jesus Christ. Because in Jesus, to steal a phrase from today’s psalm, God let his face shine upon us.

Readings for today’s Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121611.cfm

Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Written by Br.  Gabriel Torretta, OP

All hikers have, at some point or another, found themselves completely out of water, several arduous miles away from trail’s end. Once the heat and labor of the day exhaust the body’s normal water supplies, the burning thirst that results has a curious effect; rather than simply sapping the hiker’s strength, the thirst focuses his energy and attention on the single goal of finishing the hike and finding water.

Hunger and thirst are physical imperatives that will not let themselves be ignored; we either obey our body’s demands for food and water or we die. There are no other options.

The fourth beatitude transforms and elevates those physical desires, without losing any of their seriousness: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” The desire for righteousness, for a genuine relationship with God, is as real as hunger and thirst, and is even more essential. The body will die without food and drink, but without a living relationship with God, the soul itself may be imperiled.

But the desire for righteousness is not desperate or frantic; rather, the desire focuses our attention on God, making us more single-minded, more willing to give up all else in order to live in his love. Neither is the desire for righteousness a matter of forcing myself to feel something I don’t. Because God is the only one who can bring us to relationship with him, only he can put the desire in our hearts.

The good news is that God has already given us that desire. Jesus Christ redeemed us through his Incarnation, death, and resurrection so that he might draw us out of the selfish morass into which our sin sinks us and fill us with longing for unity with him in heaven. He sustains us by his grace, that we might live with our hearts fixed with joy on his Second Coming, when he will quench the thirst of all who burn for love of him.

Today’s meditation: Skip a meal today and offer God your hunger. Spend some time in prayer when hungry.

I was explaining to a new Catholic recently that the color purple (violet) used in advent is akin to its use in Lent, in that both are considered penitential seasons. Hence we are to give special attention to our sins and our need for salvation. Traditionally we would also take part in penitential practices of fasting and abstinence.

Of course, in recent decades Advent has almost wholly lost any real penitential practices. There is no fasting or abstinence  required. Confession is encouraged and the readings still retain a kind of  focus on repentance.

But long gone are the days of a forty day fast beginning on Nov 12. The observances were every bit as strict as Lent. St. Martin’s Feast Day was a day of carnival (which means literally “farewell to meat” (carnis + vale)). In those days the rose vestments of Gaudete were really something to rejoice about, since the fast was relaxed for a day. Then back into the fast until Christmas. Lent too began with Mardi Gras (fat Tuesday), as the last of the fat was used used up and the fast was enjoined beginning the next day.

And the fast and abstinence were far more than the tokenary observances we have today. In most places, all animal products were strictly forbidden during Advent and Lent. There were many regional differences about the rest of the details.  While most areas permitted fish, others permitted fish and fowl.  Some prohibited fruit and eggs, and some places like monasteries ate little more than bread.  In some places, on Fridays of Lent and Advent, believers abstained from food for an entire day; others took only one meal. In most places, however, the practice was to abstain from eating until the evening, when a small meal without vegetables or alcohol was eaten.

Yes, those were the day of the Giants! When fasting and abstinence were real things.

Our little token fast on only two days really isn’t much of a fast: two small meals + one regular meal; is that really a fast at all?  And we abstain from meat only on the Fridays of Lent, instead of all forty days.

What is most remarkable to me is that such fasts of old were undertaken by men, women and children who had a lot less to eat than we do. Not only was there less food, but is was far more seasonal and its supply less predictable. Further, famines and food shortages were more a fact of life than today. Yet despite all this they were able to fast, and twice a year at that, for eighty days total. There were also ember days sporadically through the year when a day long fast was enjoined.

Frankly I doubt we moderns could pull off the fast of the ancients, and even the elders of more recent centuries. Can you imagine the belly aching (pun intended) if the Church called us to follow the strict norms of even 200 years ago? We would hear that such demands were unrealistic, even unhealthy.

Perhaps it is a good illustration of how our abundance enslaves us. The more we get the more we want. And the more we want the more we think we can’t live without. To some degree or another we are so easily owned by what we claim to own, we are enslaved by our abundance and we experience little freedom to go without.

I look back to the Catholics of 100 years and before and think of them like giants compared to us. They had so little compared to me, but they seem to have been so much freer. They could fast. Though poor, they built grand Churches and had large families. They crowded into homes and lived and worked in conditions few of us would be able to tolerate today. And sacrifice seemed more “normal” to them. I have not read of any huge outcries that the mean nasty Church imposed fasting and abstinence in Advent and Lent. Nor have I read of outcries of the fasting from midnight before receiving Communion. Somehow they accepted these sacrifices and were largely able to undertake them. They had a freedom that I think many of us lack.

And then too, imagine the joy when, for a moment the fast lifted in these times: Immaculate Conception, Gaudete, Annunciation, St. Joseph’s Feast day, Laetare Sunday. Imagine the joy. For us its just a pink candle and a pondering, “Rejoice? Over what?” For them these were actual and literal “feast days.”

I admit, I am a man of my time and I find the fasting and abstinence described above nearly “impossible.” I am thinking about going meatless for all forty days, this coming Lent and am currently discerning if that is what the Lord intends for me. But something makes me look back to the Giants of old, who, having far less than I, did such things as a matter of course.

There were giants in those days!

When we are waiting for the return of a long absent friend, for instance at a train station or airport, we strain our eyes as we attempt to pick him out of the crowd of people, wondering perhaps whether he will look the same as when we last saw him, whether we will even recognize him. We seek his face in the crowd, but have misgivings when we see someone who looks similar. Our imagination strains to recreate how he looked when we last saw him, to suggest how he might look now.

Something similar can happen even when we await someone we’ve never seen — we imagine what her features may be, how her voice will sound, what mannerisms she may exhibit. This is particular poignant, I imagine, for a mother who awaits the arrival of her unborn child. She feels the presence of the baby, kicking or lounging about as the case may be, but can only imagine what he may look like, how he might coo or cry, who he will resemble most. During the months of waiting, the mother longs to see the face of her child.

As we await the coming of the baby Jesus this Advent season, we have in a way both kinds of longing. The one we await is a traveller from a far-away land, who has existed since before time began, with God and in God, leaving sign posts concerning himself in Moses and in the Prophets–and yet he comes to us as a little baby, whose countenance has been formed anew in the womb of the Virgin Mary. As Mary awaits the birth of her son, she eagerly looks forward to seeing his face. She already has heard the holy name of Jesus, and has perhaps pronounced it, at least to her betrothed, who knows it also. Now she awaits the revelation of his holy face, the face of the child she has been told is the son of God. “Seek the face of the Lord always,” she prays. “Let the light of your countenance shine on me, O Lord.”

Meditation: On the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary reveals herself as an expectant woman, bearing God in a hidden way within herself. Take a moment to join her in her longing to see her son. Pray to her that she may help you to long more profoundly to see the face of God.

Written by Br.  Gabriel Torretta, OP

For children, December can be both the happiest and the most agonizing month of the year. The anticipation of Christmas is almost too much to bear—the long weeks of waiting, knowing that any (or none!) of the absolutely necessary, can’t-live-without toys and gadgets on their Christmas lists could be hiding in some closet somewhere, can be almost physically painful. Some might even resort to drastic measures to ease the pain of waiting—turning clocks forward, changing calendars, and rooting out potential present hiding spots.

As we get older, the objects of our desires change, but the ways we try to satisfy them might stay the same. Waiting for what we want is hard, and always comes with a kind of pain; just taking what we want often seems easier. Why wait in a long line if I can just cut to the front instead? Why ask to use my neighbor’s snowblower if I can take it and return it before he notices? Why apologize to my girlfriend if I can make my mistake look like her fault?

But we are not trapped forever in our own egos and selfish plans. The third beatitude shows us the way out: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The meek are those who accept that they are not the masters of their own lives. Rather than trying to force their will upon every situation, they trust that the Lord loves them enough to give them what they need.

The meek are not spineless or weak; they are men and women who have allowed their desires to be shaped completely by God. The meek live the life God has given them without reservation or selfishness; freed from the prison of their own obsessive grip on time and the world, they are free to be fully human. The meek will inherit the earth, not by the merely transient pleasures of the world, but by the heavenly joy that has no end.

Our Lord will come again, we know not when. But we know he will take to himself all those who have given their desires over to him, who have not tried to force their way into heaven by selfish pride, but have allowed God to change them slowly, in his own time.

Today’s meditation: Spend a few minutes in prayer, asking God for the virtue of patience.

Today is a day for us to rejoice! Of course, every Sunday is a day of rejoicing because it’s the day on which we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. On this third Sunday of Advent, however, joy and rejoicing are special themes that run throughout the prayers and Bible readings appointed for today’sMass. That’s why today is traditionally called “Gaudete” Sunday, from the Latin word for “rejoice.” And that’s also why the candle we lit on the Advent wreath today is pink, a more festive and joyful color than purple.

Joy is something that all of us long for and search for. Deep down, every one of us wants to be a joy-filled person. “God made us for joy,” said Pope John Paul II. That’s why it’s important, I think, that we give careful consideration to what today’s scripture readings suggest that we do. For instance, the first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, doesn’t tell us simply to rejoice. It tells us instead to rejoice “in the Lord.” That’s a critical distinction, because so many people today try to find joy in something other than the Lord.

Yet that’s a hopeless quest. Because while there are many things in our world that can bring us some passing happiness, true and lasting joy can only come about through a personal, life-giving relationship with the Lord. As Isaiah said, “In my God is the joy of my soul.” This means two things. First, joy is God’s gift to us when we’re in relationship with him. Second, if we want to be joyful people, we need to work on our relationship with God. Joy, then, is something we need to cultivate.

One way we can cultivate joy is to remember, on a regular basis, all the wonderful things that God has done for us. We heard Isaiah do this when he rejoiced that God had clothed him with a robe of salvation and wrapped him in a mantle of justice. And we heard Mary, the Mother of Jesus, do the same in today’s responsorial psalm, which is a selection from her Magnificat, the song she sang after Jesus was conceived in her womb. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” she sang. “The Almighty has done great things for me.”

Attending Mass frequently, even daily if possible, is an excellent way we can remember the great things that God has done for us. In fact, this is one of the reasons why Jesus gave us the Mass. “Do this inmemory of me,” he said. And every time we honor that command, we recall Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension- all done out of love for us, for our salvation, and for our joy.

Praying the rosary is another excellent way we can bring to mind the great things that God has done for us, because it helps us to reflect upon the significant events in Jesus’ life, and Mary’s too. It’s also essential that we read the Bible. If you don’t do so already, I would recommend, during the week, prayerfully reading and studying the Scripture readings appointed for Sunday Mass.

A second way we can cultivate joy is by counting our blessings. This is what St. Paul tells us to do in today’s reading from I Thessalonians. “In all circumstances give thanks,” he said, “for this is the will of God.” So often, however, we go through our day taking things for granted and being bombarded with materialistic messages. We wind up envious of the things we don’t have, and ungrateful for the things we do. This can rob us of our joy. That’s why we should follow St. Paul’s advice to give thanks for anything and everything. We can give thanks for even the littlest things: A morning cup of coffee, the fact that the toilet flushed, a smile from a stranger. We can even give thanks for difficult and painful things, because they’re opportunities God gives us to exercise patience and forgiveness. If we give thanks for all things, we’ll recall how much God loves us and provides for us, and our joy will grow.

St. Paul also told us today to “pray without ceasing.” This is another way we can grow in joy. Praying without ceasing may seem like an unattainable or unrealistic goal. But ask yourself how much you pray now, and you’ll be sure to find that you can pray even more. One way to pray more is to make it a habit to pray at the beginning and the end of regular daily events. For instance, say a prayer when you first wake up. Instead of saying, “Oh no, it’s morning,” say “Oh God, it’s morning” and then ask for his blessings upon your day. Prayer also when you go to bed at night. We can also pray at the beginning and end of meals, commutes to and from our jobs, and when starting and finishing our work. We can pray when we tuck our kids in, pray when we drop them off at school, and pray when we pick them up. We can pray in the shower, in the car, and while we fold laundry and do the dishes. And many people today offer morning and evening prayers from devotional books or magazines.

The bottom line is that we joy for which we seek can only be found through a relationship with God. And anything we do to grow in that relationship will help us to grow in joy. Because with God, we’ll receive the joy of being forgiven. We’ll experience the joy of being unconditionally loved. We’ll know the joy of being promised an eternity of happiness. And we’ll find joy in the assurance that God is in control, that he walks by our side, and that he has a purpose and plan for our lives. Truly, in the words of John Paul II, “Our God is the God of joy!”

Image Credits: Wikipedia Commons, Wikipedia Commons, Wikipedia Commons

Readings for today’s Mass:http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121111.cfm