“SPRINGS OF LIVING WATER”
Daily Spiritual Reflections
21st December 2021
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TUESDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT – O Radient Dawn (O Oriens)
Sg 2: 8-14 or Zep 3: 14-18; Ps 33: 2-3,11-12,20-21; Lk 1: 39-45
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REJOICE! GOD IS WITH YOU
The world is still living in the shadow of the pandemic. Yet today, Prophet Zephaniah in the reading asks us to rejoice, as Christmas is near. The opening verse of this section contains an unrestrained summon to rejoice. By piling up every available expression for joy, the prophet leaps across the valley of gloom into the realm of grace-beyond-devastation. He starts with the direction to have a triumphant song. Indeed, they are to “sing aloud… shout … Rejoice and exult/be glad.”
In the next verse, God gives the reason of rejoicing: first, the Lord takes away their punishment. Second, he has rid them from their enemies. Third, the Lord, the King of Israel, is with them, and that is the greatest reason to rejoice. Consequently, do not despair and do not stop doing good. God never wants his people to lose hope and become desperate. Our God is a God who builds and not destroys. He invites his people to join hands with him in reaching out to others. The pandemic is an occasion for us to show solidarity and magnanimity and become instruments of God’s helping hand. Then God himself will rejoice and be glad.
We note in the Gospel the encounter of two great women of faith meeting and rejoicing because they consented to God’s working with them. Mary’s concern for the physical need of Elizabeth and her visit bringing two unborn children together creates a spiritual atmosphere of joy and ecstasy. John the Baptist leapt for joy when he encountered Jesus in Mary’s womb. As Pope Francis taught, “The Christian identity card is joy, the Gospel’s joy, the joy of having been chosen by Jesus, saved by Jesus, regenerated by Jesus; the joy of that hope that Jesus is waiting for us, the joy that – even with the crosses and sufferings we bear in this life – is expressed in another way, which is peace in the certainty that Jesus accompanies us, is with us."
Response: Ring out your joy to the Lord, O you just; O sing him a song that is new.
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