Fr Jarek Kurek OSB
Last Sunday, we celebrated Gaudete Sunday – Rejoice Sunday – a Sunday of special joy.
This Sunday, given it falls just before Christmas amidst all the preparations we undertake, can easily pass unnoticed, and we may miss the message this Sunday brings for us.
So, maybe we can give this Sunday a title also?
How about Sunday of Spiritual Empowerment?
What could this be?
The reading before the Gospel started with these telling words: ‘To God who is able to strengthen us’, God who is able…. The Gospel took up this theme and related the mysterious conceptions that took place in the wombs of Mary and Elisabeth. It concluded with this revealing declaration : ‘For nothing will be impossible with God’.
Today, on the eve of Christmas day a great mystery is indeed being revealed to us Christians: God the Most High was happy to impart his immense power on the Virgin Mary, which would eventually lead to the birth of her divine Son, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you’, Mary heard from the angel.
But that’s not the end of the story… for us…today… Because the fact that Jesus was born in the flesh, that God became man means that each of us is invited to share in that immense spiritual power through our union with the Virgin Mary and her son Jesus.
Now, we often remain as if at a distance from God – as if He were far away, hidden, beyond our grasp. Even now we may shy away from the overwhelming invitation to share directly in His divine power.
But I encourage you to look in a new way, to reconsider your status, your privileged status, and to think of an inner potential that is in you.
If you truly receive Christ who is to be born for us tonight, if you anew believe in Him who is the power of our salvation, then you will also be given special power, power to become a child of God. That will get you a different feeling how it is to be with God, a different relationship will be struck up. You will enter the realm of spiritual intimacy, becoming close to the divine presence as never before…
And again, that’s not all. Today God, who is truly able to do anything, wants to give us another special power, one more spiritual ability. Embodying Jesus’ mother we are invited to become a vessel for God himself. We are invited to receive God himself in our inner being, by opening our hearts to divine love.
Becoming a vessel for God…
This is not a novel teaching. It was the the pillars of orthodoxy in the Early Church, Sts Irenaeus and Athanasius, who teach us this. Those great theologians were at pains to establish sound teaching in their turbulent times. Today they want to tell us this, thanks to the coming of Jesus to this world it became possible for us, if we really seek God, if we really try to handle Him, to find Him and take hold of Him, in a most reverent way of course. Those great men teach us that thanks to God’s taking on our human body, we in turn can be given power to apprehend God the Father and so approach Him in a most intimate way. Something that remains virtually impossible to the minds of many nowadays, is actually possible and has been a part of the Church’s teaching for centuries.
‘For nothing will be impossible with God’.
On this Sunday, just before Christmas, remember this mystery that has been disclosed for us: growing in our spirits, through this wonderful spiritual empowerment coming from God, we are enabled to make room for Him within us, thus becoming His precious spiritual vessel.
Could there be a better Christmas gift ?