Waiting for our God

December 23, Thursday of the Fourth Week of Advent
Daily Readings: Malachi 3:1-4; 4:23-24, Gospel Luke 1:57-66

Carlo Carretto, one of the great spiritual writers of our time, spent several years living as a hermit, praying in the Sahara Desert. When someone asked him what he thought he heard God saying to him in all that silence and after all that prayer, Carretto replied: "God is telling us: 'Learn to wait-wait-wait for your God!  Wait for love, be patient with everything.  Everything that is worthwhile must be waited for!"

This is what our Advent journey is all about and which the scripture readings for this Season have invited us to embrace.

The readings invite us to consider two more people of great faith who were chosen to be messengers of hope in circumstances which appeared to be impossible without their openness to God.

The Book of Malachi was written after the Jewish people returned from exile in Babylon and the Temple in Jerusalem has been re-built. The prophet Malachi sees how the people are no longer following the Law of God and see no value in it. He speaks of a messenger who will prepare people's hearts for God's coming. This messenger is identified as a returning Elijah.

The Gospel is an invitation to focus on the birth and circumcision of John the Baptist whose coming brought great joy to Elizabeth and Zechariah and also to their relatives and friends.

Zachariah had doubted God's Word given by the Angel Gabriel that his aged wife Elizabeth, who was barren, could bear a child. He was struck dumb until during the circumcision when he acknowledged God's word and wrote on the tablet, "John is his name." He regained his speech at that moment and praised God.

The people were astonished and said, "What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him." ("John" comes from the Hebrew and means "God's grace": the female form is Joanne or Joanna. John was graced by God and became an instrument of God's grace).

We know that the birth of John the Baptist was a special event in the preparation for the coming of Jesus. Like the prophet Malachi who called the people to turn back to God, John who is known as John the Baptist, was God's messenger who also called the people to repent of their sins and prepare their hearts for the coming of Jesus.

The people recognized that the child, John, would do great things because "The hand of God was with him".

At Baptism, God called you by name and he called you for a purpose.

• What is the meaning of your name?
• As you look back on your life, do you see how the hand of God has been with you?
• Take time today to thank God for how he has blessed you with so many gifts and especially the gift of faith.

We are all called to do what John does, that is, to point beyond ourselves to Jesus who makes present the fullness of God's life and love.

How am I making more room in the "manger" of my heart to receive the coming of Jesus this Christmas?

In the last days of Advent, 'The liturgy of Advent helps us to understand fully the value and meaning of the mystery of Christmas. It is not just about commemorating the historical event, which occurred some 2,000 years ago in a little village of Judea.

Instead, it is necessary to understand that the whole of our life must be an 'advent,' a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ.

To predispose our mind to welcome the Lord who, as we say in the Creed, one day"Will come to judge the living and the dead," we must learn to recognize him as present in the events of daily life.

Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward him "who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously." Pope John Paul II, December 18, 2002.