THE WORD BECAME FLESH

Monday in the first week of Advent, 2022

Isa 4:2-6

Ps 122

Luke 10:21-24

Happy the eyes...

Advent is a season of prayerful waiting for the coming of the Lord. The great Advent prayer is ‘Come Lord Jesus’. In that prayer, we invite the Lord to come into our lives more fully. We ask the Lord to be born within our lives so that we might worthily celebrate the feast of Christ’s birth to Mary and Joseph. In Advent, we enter into the spirit of Mary’s prayerful waiting for her son to be born, a prayerful waiting that found a special expression in her great prayer the Magnificat. 

At the beginning of the first week of Advent with its call to prayer, this morning’s gospel reading (Lk 10: 21-24), puts before us an example of the prayer of Jesus. His prayer was inspired by the Holy Spirit, ‘filled with joy by the Holy Spirit, Jesus said...’ All true prayer is inspired and shaped by the Holy Spirit. In his prayer, Jesus blesses or praises God for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to mere children while hiding them from the learned and the clever. Jesus’ prayer reminds us that we need the simplicity and the openness of the child to receive all that God is offering us. Advent calls on us to become like little children in that sense, to open our hearts in simplicity and humility to the Lord’s coming.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, give me the child-like simplicity and purity of faith to gaze upon your face with joy and confidence in your all-merciful love. Amen.

+Remain blessed!