December 21: The Day of the Lord / El Día del Señor

At the end of the Advent season, the Church offers us two of the greatest figures who pointed to the birth of Christ the Savior. They are Mary His mother and Joseph her betrothed. The “waiting” we have heard so much about all Advent is at last focused precisely – it could not be more precisely located than in these two people. God’s “new deed,” the Child to be born, is to be born in her and cared for by him. We owe it to them and to ourselves to invite them to share the final days of the Advent journey with us. Who knows better how to wait, how to trust, and how to love?

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Once upon a time, there was a group of people waiting for a long-delayed bus. The line at the bus stop got longer as they waited, and it was possible to see all the different kinds of “waiting.” 

Several people waited in a fidgety, restless manner, repeatedly looking up the street for the long-awaited bus, checking their watches, and rolling their eyes in exasperation. When was it going to come? We can imagine the uncomplimentary things they were thinking about the bus company.

Then there were others whose waiting was quite different. These had gone into themselves and closed the proverbial door. One of them seemed totally stoic and was leaning against the lamp post in what looked like despair. That, too, is a manner of waiting.

But there, among them, was a young woman who was very obviously pregnant. She was waiting, too, for the bus, but there was a deeper kind of waiting in her. In contrast to the rest of the group, she had an extraordinary calm. She was glowing. She was waiting for the bus, yes, but her deeper waiting was paradoxical, and that was probably the key to her remarkable calmness: she was waiting for something that (or who) was there already!

We are waiting for something that (or someone who) is already here, but needing to become visible. Hopefully, we are not waiting impatiently, nor stoically. We are waiting for someone who is closer to us than we are to ourselves. This kind of waiting puts us in the right place for the remarkable calm and the glowing sense of “presence” that the young woman had at the bus stop.

***

El Cuarto Domingo de Adviento nos invita a celebrar que Dios está con nosotros. Dios está en medio de nosotros. Dios, en forma humana, vive en medio de nosotros y viene para hacernos real y plenamente humanos en el modo que Dios se propuso; y quiere que seamos total y perfectamente humanos.
 Jesús es nuestro modelo de “profunda humanidad.” Solamente tenemos que mirarle y dejar que Él nos modele y nos forme con su Espíritu. Entonces nosotros también seremos completa y totalmente hijos e hijas de nuestro Dios bondadoso. Éste es el formidable mensaje del Adviento y de hoy. — Percibamos a Jesús que viene. Que su Palabra y su Eucaristía nos transformen, y que lleguemos a ser “carne de su carne y sangre de su sangre.”

En estos días tenemos ya la luz de los árboles de Navidad y de las estrellas del nacimiento, y el intercambio de regalos entre parientes y amigos. Que todos estos gestos cobren significado al resplandor de la Luz mayor de Dios y del regalo más sublime de Dios a nosotros: su propio Hijo Jesucristo nuestro Dios-con-nosotros.