Gospel for December 22 2024 – Luke 1:39-45
Gospel Reflections for December 22 2024
Surprise gift …just for you!
Christmas is about surprises …gifts under the tree, unexpected but welcome guests, and cards from long ago friends.
The Gospel also presents people and places that were amazingly surprised!
Mary assumed she would never have a child because she had taken a vow of celibacy as some devout Jews did at that time. Her cousin Elizabeth, who deeply wanted a child, was an elderly and barren woman that no one thought would ever have a child. Bethlehem was a very small village in which no one believed anything important would ever happen.
They lived a long way from Rome, the powerful capital of the world where everything important happened, and so nothing meaningful could ever happen to little known people in a small Middle Eastern village. All these ideas were amazingly reversed, as today’s Gospel affirms.
Our Lord is about surprises and likes to arrive at the least expected place and appear to the least expected person. Our Lord’s arrival is always His freely chosen initiative. That way, no one or no place can ever claim credit for having deserved it.
Jesus actively looks for humble stables to be born, to virgins who least expect it, to elderly women who would never believe it, or to small towns like Bethlehem who would never imagine it. That changed Mary and Elizabeth into beautiful stories of success, and something they never thought would happen.
When Jesus appears, it is always His freely chosen act and not of your doing.
If you feel especially humble this year, if you feel like a small stable in Bethlehem, then you are just the place that Our Lord is looking to be born. He is looking for the person who feels weak and uncertain, the marriage beset with arguments, and the young person in crisis or seeking answers. You are just the place that Our Lord would like to visit …and change for the better.
The essence of the Christmas story is that everything can change for the better. That Our Lord would come into your life means He always believes in you …and has hope for your future.
If you are open to His grace, what you might think is the end of the road is only the beginning of a new and surprisingly wonderful story. Merry Christmas!
God Bless!
Fr. Dave
Dear Father Dave,
Indeed, God does come when we least expect Him.
I suspect Elizabeth prayed daily for the child she finally conceived. Remarkably, I believe that Mary lived inside the grace of prayer. She understood it’s beauty and it held her soul.
Have a blessed Christmas and a new year filled with health and happiness.
Kathleen
So beautiful! 🥲🙏🏻
Thank you and Merry Christmas
You say it so well, Fr. Dave!
May the greatest gift of all imbue our hearts this Christmas!
A Merry and Blessed Christmas.
Well stated Father Dave. Jesus did not come with pomp or ceremony rather humbly in a stable laid in an animals. Feeding place. A Star showing his place of birth. We to must shed
Our pretense this Christmas Season and take to heart his message of Loving God, Our Creator above all else and Loving our Neighbor as we Love ourselves.
Merry Christmas to all and assist us in living better lives. Amen
Father ,
You always have the perfect reflection on the gospel.
Thank you
Andrea