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Advent is a time of waiting, of expectation, of silence. Waiting for our Lord to be born. A pregnant woman is so happy, so content. She lives in such a garment of silence, and it is as though she were listening to hear the stir of life within her. One always hears that stirring compared to the rustling of a bird in the hand. But the intentness which which one awaits such stirring is
like nothing so much as a blanket of silence. Dorothy Day (Silence and waiting and listening: for the new life of Christ growing within you.) |
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Rom 10:9-18; Psalm 19:8, 9,
10, 11 Mt 4:18-22 As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,
Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew,
casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.
He said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
At once they left
their nets and followed him.
He walked along from there and saw two other brothers,
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets.
He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father
and followed
him. USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“Through all the earth their voice resounds, and to the ends of the world,
their message.” —Psalm 19:5 Christians are living in love (Jn 15:9-10) with God Who is Love (1 Jn 4:8, 16). Impelled by love (2 Cor 5:14), we publicly “confess with [our] lips that Jesus is Lord” and Love (Rm 10:9). We are not ashamed of the Good News of God’s love, although it is crucified love (Rm 1:16). Love is to be expressed and shared — no matter what the consequences in a hateful world (see
Prv 27:5). In God’s love, we are bound to overturn this culture of death and replace it with “a civilization of love,” as Pope St. Paul VI prophesied in 1970.
In love, let us be witnesses for Jesus (Acts 1:8) and make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19). Let us speak boldly, freely, and openly of Christ’s love (see Eph 6:19-20). Let us be like St. Andrew, who immediately after becoming Jesus’ disciple invited
his brother, Simon, to do the same (Jn 1:41). Let us be like St. Andrew, who proclaimed God’s love to the nations and was crucified in imitation of Jesus’ crucified love.
Our beginning and our end is Love. Our mission and our message is Love. Our life and our death is Love. Abide in Love; abide in God (1 Jn 4:16).
Prayer:
Father, may I “grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, and experience this love” (Eph 3:18-19).
Promise: Jesus “called them, and immediately they abandoned boat and father to follow Him.” —Mt 4:22
Presentation Ministries
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From Meditation to Contemplation by James Arraj (all rights reserved) Cooperating With the Grace of Infused Contemplation In order to perceive
this new reality, the soul must abandon all its discursive activity and become like that which it is to receive. “Since God, then, as the giver communes with him through a simple, loving knowledge, the individual also, as the receiver, communes with God, through a simple and loving knowledge or attention, so that knowledge is thus joined with knowledge and love with love. The receiver should act according to the mode of what is received, and not otherwise, in order to receive and keep it in the
way it is given.”(“Living Flame of Love,” S 3, 34) The beginner must overcome his feelings of anxiety he is doing nothing because he is not working with the natural faculties. His work, rather, is receiving. “They must be content simply with a loving and peaceful attentiveness to God, and live without the concern, without the effort, and without the desire to taste or feel Him. All these desires disquiet the soul and distract it from the peaceful quiet and sweet idleness of the contemplation
which is being communicated to it.”(“Dark Night of the Soul,” 1, 10, 4) Online book
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