communitas et caritas

I think LOVE might be my theme for this year.....  Today's first reading from Isaiah 54 really touched me, especially the parts about God being the ONE God, and the ending: Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, My love shall never leave you, nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the LORD, who has mercy on you. God has love bigger and more permanent than mountains and hills.  All I can do to respond is love in my little way, like a pebble by comparison.   God's love embraces me so completely, my little love is no longer small.

"When Jesus talks about faith, he means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved by God." --Henri Nouwen I am loved by God. God wants for me to be most fully who God created me to be, and God will help me to find and fulfill that longing - that's love. Ah.  Humbling - joyful - immensely incomprehensible.  May each of us, like Mary, offer a faithful "YES" response to the love that God offers. Happy Feast!

Advent is probably my favorite time of year.  In part, I love the Christmas carols and anticipation of the coming of Christ.   Along with that, I love the readings from Isaiah, with their apocalyptic and hopeful expression of what Christians desire:  not just the coming of Christ, but the transformation of the whole world into the Kingdom God desires, of peace and plenty, of joy and fullness. Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid..... There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD, as water covers the sea. (Isaiah 11:6,9) So, Advent is the time of waiting, but not just waiting.  We wait for the Kingdom of God, but we wait with great longing and hope.  Waiting implies that we sit passively by; longing gets to the heart of our patient waiting, the anticipation, hope, and desire that accompanies our awaiting the coming of Christ. It is also a time of preparati