The Advent Task: Reach out to Receive
21st December, 2015
Song 2: 8-14; Lk 1: 39-45
To long for the Lord and to receive the Lord with true love in the heart: that is the objective of the season of Advent. At the fag end of this season the first reading brings that longing strongly to the fore. But the Word taken together offers us an insight totally different.
To begin with, it is not enough to long for the Lord and imagine that the Lord will come to stay with me, as if the Lord has to come from somewhere... the Lord is already in our midst and we need to feel the presence of the Lord. The way to feel the presence of the Lord is to Reach Out to those in need, those in want, those in struggles, those in loneliness, those in grief. See our Blessed Mother reaching out, in the Gospel.
Secondly, when we reach out, that is when we go to do something for someone in need, we feel that we are giving - the Word today says, No! In reaching out, we receive! In reaching out to the other who is in need, we actually receive, we receive meaning to our life, we receive peace in our hearts, we receive the Lord who is in our midst. In reaching out, we infact, receive!