THE WORD IN ADVENT - Second Friday
December 13, 2019: Remembering St. Lucy
Isaiah 48: 17-19; Matthew 11: 16-19
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| Read the Life of St. Lucy |
If we had noticed carefully these days, there is a constant reference in the Gospel this week to John the Baptist. From last Sunday, the Gospel and the preface keep presenting to us the figure of John the Baptist, to challenge us regarding how prepared we are for the Coming of the Lord!
Today we are made to reflect on the difference between "being childish" and "being child-like." Unless you become like a child you will not enter the Reign of God - but that in no way means you remain childish! Jesus gives a simple example - being childish is being so centered on yourself that you wish everything around you happens as you wish and everyone does what you wish... and said literally, that every one dances to your tunes!
Being childlike, instead, is being prophetic, being like the persons of God who abandon everything into the hands of God with total confidence in God and in God alone. One such example we have in St. Lucy the fourth century martyr whom we celebrate today - a life of total abandonment into the hands of God, as a child into the hands of its father or mother!
Another quality of typical children - that they are single minded. You tell them, 'do this', they are all taken up with that until they do that - their entire mind is occupied with that. Look at the mindset of John the Baptist... or Jesus for that matter... so single minded in their faithfulness to the One who had sent them. Another prophetic character in them.
Today we are made to reflect on the difference between "being childish" and "being child-like." Unless you become like a child you will not enter the Reign of God - but that in no way means you remain childish! Jesus gives a simple example - being childish is being so centered on yourself that you wish everything around you happens as you wish and everyone does what you wish... and said literally, that every one dances to your tunes!
Being childlike, instead, is being prophetic, being like the persons of God who abandon everything into the hands of God with total confidence in God and in God alone. One such example we have in St. Lucy the fourth century martyr whom we celebrate today - a life of total abandonment into the hands of God, as a child into the hands of its father or mother!
Another quality of typical children - that they are single minded. You tell them, 'do this', they are all taken up with that until they do that - their entire mind is occupied with that. Look at the mindset of John the Baptist... or Jesus for that matter... so single minded in their faithfulness to the One who had sent them. Another prophetic character in them.
Let us be like children, let us be child-like; let us single mindedly walk in the path God has planned for us, with our hands in the hands of God. Let us not remain childish, looking for our immediate happiness but grow to be child-like, prophetic and God-loving. Let us Repent from childishness to child-likeness!
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