Monday 6 December 2021
We are reminded this Advent to ask, ‘What is holding me captive?’ or ‘What am I afraid to let go of that hinders me walking more closely to Christ?’
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We are reminded this Advent to ask, ‘What is holding me captive?’ or ‘What am I afraid to let go of that hinders me walking more closely to Christ?’
Happy New Year! The new liturgical year begins today with the celebration of Advent. Advent carries with it a reorientation of time and a deliberate tension between end of time fulfilment and promise, expectation and deliverance, between looking forward and looking back. We can trust that God’s word is eternal and the present simply a passing moment, and we can look forward to the coming promise with heads held high in the knowledge that our redemption is drawing near.
Daniel tells us that the Son of Man will come and all dominion, glory and power will be his. He will reign over a kingdom that is everlasting and universal where all peoples, nations and languages will serve him.
It is by our humility before God and his unmerited grace that we shall hope to be numbered among the elect who are gathered by his angels to the glory of heaven.
In an act of faith and obedience, both widows in our readings had to give up and let go of what little they had in this life to be able to receive the blessings of God’s eternal graces. We are called to do the same.
It is the saints — led by Mary — who continue to pray for us that we might be open to see and believe the way to eternal life that is in Christ, revealed by his word, lived by the saints, proclaimed in the magisterium of the Church and celebrated in the sacraments that enable us, by God’s grace, to embody our fullness as children of God.