Sunday, Dec. 1, marked the beginning of the Advent season, a four-week period of preparation and anticipation leading up to the Christmas holiday and the new liturgical year. As we approach week four, Rev. Ryan G. Duns, S.J., chair and associate professor of theology, provides a personal reflection on how God’s love opens our hearts:
When I was little, my favorite custom was opening the windows of our Advent calendar. Years before I could appreciate a wine Advent calendar or imagine counting down to Christmas with 24 Days of Fishing Lures, I marked the approach of Christ’s birth by opening one window at a time.
On this fourth Sunday of Advent, I would like to look at the way each of our readings depict the way God’s love opens history and human hearts in a way that may encourage us to open our lives to receive Christ’s birth.
In the reading from Micah, we glimpse at the way God’s love is open to the poor and the marginalized. Of all the cities in the world, Micah proclaims, God has selected the insignificant town of Bethlehem to produce the leader — the shepherd — of Israel. God’s love, we see here, does not go first to the powerful and dominant. It goes, instead, to the small and humble and raises them to divine heights.
In Psalm 80 we hear the cry of the human heart as it opens itself in love as it begs God to act with faithfulness and love. The response, “Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved,” is a heartfelt plea for God to restore and save His people. This psalm expresses powerfully our enduring need for God’s healing and redeeming love, a love that pierces the darkness of sin and leads us along the ways of light and life.
Our readings from Hebrews and Luke’s Gospel agree that love is more than a sentimental feeling (despite what the Hallmark channel would have us believe). Love is an action. Love inspires Mary to visit her pregnant cousin Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, recognizes Mary as the bearer of love made flesh when she calls Mary “blessed among women.” In today’s Gospel, love both opens the door to the journey of service and opens the mouth to give God glory. The reading from Hebrews gives each one of us a concrete way of expressing this today: “Behold, I come to do your will.” Love actively and joyfully seeks to do the will of the Beloved.
For many, the door of the heart is “blocked.” Disappointment, grief, resentment and anger can make it difficult to open ourselves to others and to God. Taken together, today’s readings should give us courage: God’s love opens. It opens a new and graced future for Bethlehem; it awakens hope for the psalmist; it empowers Mary’s journey and Elizabeth’s affirmation. If today you hear the sound of the Lord approaching, perhaps you can open the heart’s window… just a crack… and trust that the Holy One will accept your invitation to enter, to find a home within your heart, and allow Christ to be born anew in your life. Open the window — again, just a crack — and discover that you will not just celebrate Christmas. You will become Christmas.
