Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent.
When I was in Lay Ministry formation one of the instructors said if you are ever asked a question about Jesus and don’t know the answer just say “love” because you have a good chance at being right.
Our fourth candle for Advent, which is violet, represents love. If you had to give a one word description of Christianity you would likely say love or maybe loving. That is at least the goal though we sometimes fall short. In modern language we might call that aspirational. However, in the case of God it is real, so real, by the way, that St. John tells us that God IS love. God isn’t just loving but He is love itself. That’s what we aspire to, to love like God.
In that best known of all Gospel passages we hear that God so loved us that He became one of us so that we might be saved. In a literal translation He pitched His tent among us. God’s love became manifest in Jesus, whose birth we’re about to celebrate.
As Advent ends and Christmas begins we’ll burn this fourth candle for the last time but, renewed by the experience of Advent, I hope we newly appreciate God’s Love. In that great old song “There is a balm in Gilead” the singer says “if you cannot preach like Peter and you cannot pray like Paul just tell of the love of Jesus who came to save us all.” In the words of Linus, “that’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown“.
In this morning’s (Saturday) Office of Readings, a part of the Liturgy of the Hours, there was a responsorial I want to share with you, appropriate for where we are in the liturgical year. It is a combination of verses from Psalms 96 and 72 as well as Isaiah 49: “Rejoice, you heavens, and celebrate, O earth; cry out with praise, you mountains, for the Lord is coming. He will have compassion on his poor.” Let us do the same.
That’s it for now.
I hope your Christmas is full of the love of Christ, friends, and family.
Peace, Bob
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