Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - December 31, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from You.”
A brief review: We have four books in the New Testament that we call Gospels, the ‘good news’ of the works and words of Jesus Christ. Two of them, Matthew and Luke, give us the stories pictured on Christmas cards: angels, magi, shepherds, a manger and the Holy Family as refugees to another country. Mark does not have the infancy stories but begins with John the Baptist’s preaching and baptizing Jesus. The Gospel of John has none of that. Instead it begins: “In the beginning was the Word.” Jesus is the Word of God. God reveals God’s self in the Son become the man Jesus.
In John 1:14 we read, “So the Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us.” Or, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Jesus (the Word) in becoming flesh (what we celebrate at Christmas) was not beginning a short stay, a trial visit, a weekend, but a human life which continues. Ronald Rolheiser writes: “In the incarnation God has chosen to let his power flow through us.” In other words, through Jesus living in us God works and touches our fellow human beings to heal and help. Fittingly we sing: “Joy to the world, the Lord has come!”
A prayer attributed to Teresa of Avila spells this out:
“Christ has no body now but yours,/ no hands but yours,/ no feet but yours./ Yours are the eyes through which/ Christ’s compassion must look out on the world./ Yours are the feet with which /he is to go about doing good./ Yours are the hands with which / he is to bless us now.”
“Be assured, I am with you always, to the end of time.” Matthew 28:20.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
