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"God comes" in all three of today's readings, differently in each of them. How do we respond? One way is with gladness and eagerness, trusting in God's love and doing our own straightening of roads, our own making the deserts of our culture and our lives bloom with charity, our own lifting up the broken. Another way is to be like Mary first and foremost --- praying in a listening, waiting manner. We open our ears and let God tell us what He wants, let ourselves be filled with the Spirit instead of prattling about what we want. We equivalently open all our doors and windows, remove as many blockages as possible to our most interior self, drop our defenses, and let God enter our lives as He wills.... ...and He makes of each of us a Jesus or a John (as in today's Gospel reading), a Peter or a Paul, a Martha or a Mary, but most especially the particular me that he wants me to be. He has a very loving hope in me, but if I spend all my prayer time telling God what I want, He has little room to truly come to me and make His will and desires for me known. And of course there are many other ways that God comes to each of us, focused directly on each of us as individuals and meeting us right where we are at each moment, in each situation. God comes. How do I welcome Him? |