Today, December 17, begins the last stretch of Advent before
Christmas—what is called late Advent.
And beginning today until Christmas Eve, as you heard just
before the Gospel, the Church sings these beautiful musical phrases called the
O Antiphons. Today, I first sang the verse in Latin then in English because the
O Antiphons were first written in Latin, 1500 years ago—in the sixth century.
Before America was discovered—before English was even a language spoken by
human beings—the Church was singing these beautiful O Antiphons in latin in
preparation for the birth of Jesus at Christmas.
In each of these O Antiphons, the Church asks God for
special help—help to prepare well for Christmas. Today, the O Antiphon asked
God for Wisdom. O Sapientia, Sapientia is the latin word for Wisdom. I sang O
Wisdom which comes forth from the mouth of God, help us to order our days
rightly and prudently.
What is wisdom? What does it mean to be wise? Wisdom helps
us to get our life in order—the right order. Particularly during these 8 days
before Christmas, we want to make sure our life is rightly ordered—that we are
not being foolish with the time we’ve been given. And wisdom does just
that—wisdom helps us to know what matters most.
Wisdom isn’t just about being smart and knowing a lot of
things. Your mind might be filled with a million facts about science and
technology and sports and literature and art and music. But just because you
know a lot of things doesn’t make that you make good choices. We need the
wisdom, the instruction that comes from God, to make good choices that help our
souls grow in holiness.
And right at the beginning of Late Advent the Church turns
to God, and asks God, God grant us wisdom, that we might use the time we’ve
been given to prepare our hearts for the celebration of the birth of Jesus
Christ on Christmas. Help us to be prudent with our time and our abilities to
prepare well for Christmas.
In the Gospel today, we heard the long genealogy, the long
family tree of Jesus stretching all the way back to the beginning of the people
of Israel with Abraham, through King David, and finally to Joseph the husband
of Mary. From all time, God had been ordering the generations of the human
family to prepare for the birth of His Son. And if he can do that, he can
certainly help us order our lives to get ready for Christmas.
To wisely prepare for Christmas, we need to think about
Jesus every day, we need to pray every day, we need to make sure that evil and
selfishness are not taking root in us, and make sure that we are practicing the
kindness, gentleness, patience, and generosity we are capable of.
By practicing wisdom, we come to recognize that Christmas
isn’t just about getting presents, but about celebrating the birth of Jesus who
came to save us, reconcile us to God and grow in union with God, who enables us
to be the people God made us to be, wise and prudent, good and holy for the
glory of God and the salvation of souls.
No comments:
Post a Comment