The WORD in ADVENT - December 19, 2022
Christmas Novena - Day 4: Judges 13:2-7,24-25; Luke 1: 5-25
The Word today presents to us two women, considered and categorised as 'barren', who miraculously bear their firstborns and dedicate them to the Lord! There is Manoah's wife, the mother of Samson and thereis Elizabeth, the wife of Zecchariah. The two newborns, Samson and John, even before they were conceived were meant to be God's messengers! One was a nazirite from the mothers womb and the other was capable of identifying the One who comes in the name of the Lord, right from when he was in his mother's womb!
What the world considers impossible, the Lord proves possible; what the world cannot even think of, the Lord has planned from eternity and executes in God's own time; what the world thinks natural and normal. the Lord manifests how spectacular and wonderful it is... life - a great gift from the Lord to each of us.
When moments seem troublesome and weary, dark and dreary, confusing and out of control... we tend to give up hope, become desperate and fall into the danger of hopelessness! With the sense of desperation, one can miss the most obvious and grand signs of the magnificence of God that appears on a daily basis! This is a real danger that can push us to the state of missing the Lord who comes: a sense of desperation, the tendency to Hopelessness!
The Symbol is that of the shoot growing on a dry bark... signalling the hope that the Lord offers in times when everything seems dark and dead. The exodus event, the miracles in the desert, the water from the rock, the guidance by day and night - everyone of these was a sign of God's promises being fulfilled. The final fulfillment and the pinnacle of everything was - Incarnation, that which we are preparing to celebrate.
The prayer today is to reinforce that HOPE...that we may always look forward to the deliverance that the Lord can offer! Never let anyone rob you of your hope, reminds our Holy Father.