Daily Readings Reflection for 11/30/10

Reflection on Today’s Daily Readings by Fr. Bertrand Buby, SM

Scripture: Lectionary 177: Isaiah 11:1-10. Psalm 72: 1.7-8.12-13.17. Luke
10:21-24:

Jesus teaches us the best way to think and pray during Advent. It is easy
and direct and involves the love he and the Father have. Yes, it is the
Holy Spirit and we are called to rejoice as he did in the Holy Spirit.
This word rejoice will be heard and seen in writing many times this season,
but today it is announced and we are led to respond to the word today and
the rest of Advent. This word characterizes Advent and is a gift of the
Holy Spirit--rejoicing, joy, blessedness.

Mary, another great person to follow during Advent, is told by the Angel to
rejoice (Chaire!). She is filled with the Holy Spirit and rejoices in God
her Savior (Yeshua or Jesus). Though not part of the Trinity she is in
tune with what the Persons are and how their love for one another results
as one God ever present among us. The Holy Spirit is that love. Paul, too,
tells us to rejoice in his letters. He announces Advent by this word
rejoice.

The Gospel passage comes from the Evangelist Luke who is the Evangelist of
the Holy Spirit. He presents the scene in which we enter the spirit of
Jesus as one of rejoicing as well as one who shares his intimate prayer
with his Father through the Spirit. Jesus prays for us to be like innocent
children so that we may learn what the wise and powerful of this world
cannot know. We receive that same Spirit at our Baptism when most of us
are children or even babies and, at that sacred moment of grace we will be
guided and transformed during the rest of our lives. We become then the
"merest" of children but we understand the promptings of the Holy Spirit
and how we are to rejoice in the Spirit.

Jesus, the Son of the Father, wishes to reveal himself to us this Advent.
We sense this through the peace, joy, and graces that are ours for the
asking. Our silence, contemplation, and listening will help us to rejoice
in the Spirit by giving us the atmosphere necessary for such inward joy.

The passage tells us that Jesus shared this privately with his disciples.
He tells them, "Blessed (happy) are your eyes that many of the prophets
and kings did not have. They wished to see Jesus but did not. The disciples
see Jesus among them and rejoice in his presence. They listen and hear his
words. And we, the disciples of the Lord for today's world are called to
accept the Spirit and to be children of God. We then enjoy the same graces
that the disciples did. We therefore Rejoice! that we are God's children.

Prayer: Lord, grant us the strength to dream out our best thoughts, the
heroism to persevere through their collapse, the chlidlkeness to be reborn
anew so that the mystery of your hopes be manifest in our lives. No life,
lost in you, is ever lost, only transformed into its most mysterious
possiblity. (Fr. Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P.). Amen.