In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Tuesday 8 September 2020

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Word for today
The Gospel of Matthew 1:1-16,18-23

Preparations

It was neither sudden nor improvised. It was neither unforeseen, unexpected, hasty or precipitous. The visit of Emmanuel, God with us, cannot be called sudden or improvised. It cannot in any way be said that Emmanuel's visit to humanity was prepared in a rough, hasty, superficial, or approximate way. Emmanuel's visit to earth was the outcome of a cosmic project without precedents. Preparation for Jesus' visit to the earth and to humanity took millions of years. Emmanuel's visit to the earth was prepared and announced to the world with divine precision and determination. Written and perfectly legible in the stars' movements and in the holy books of every ancient spirituality, Jesus' visit was announced and prophetized with detailed precision, mostly in between the lines of the revealed Word par excellence, the Old Testament. All the more that Emmanuel's visit was a heavenly and divine one, all the more was it prepared superbly and perfectly, as well as in complete respect of human freedom. It was, therefore, presented to humanity's minds and heart's bathed in every grace and glory even if in a simple, kind, humble, almost modest way.
Emmanuel's  visit to the earth, so divinely and lovingly prepared and announced by heaven, can appear sudden only by ignorant persons, unexpected only by the stupid, useless only by the superb, dangerous only by the proud, harmful only by the religious hierarchies, disturbing only by the powerful. Maybe that is why that day celebrating the first and supreme encounter of Jesus-God with humanity, on the guest list of that celebration, which was in the hands of God's angels, there were no representatives of the Jewish religion,  no high priests of the temple, no  leaders of the people, no politicians.  For the most extraordinary and sublime encounter in all of human history, on the angel's list there were only the names of Mary and Joseph, of shepherds and common people, together with those of persons coming from afar, humble seekers of God with deep spirituality and wisdom, the Magi. No one better than God was aware that on earth there are no knees more ready to kneel in loving and joyful adoration before God than those of the humble and the simple, of the men and women who lovingly seek God. Not because simple people have a weaker mind, but because they have a bigger heart and a spiritual vision not constrained by prejudices or boundaries, as Matthew in 11:25 confirmed.