The Tender Compassion of Our God

December 24, 2008

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Advent
Mass in the Morning

By Melanie Rigney

“I have been with you wherever you went, and I have destroyed all your enemies before you.” (2 Samuel 7:9)

The promises of the Lord I will sing forever, proclaim your loyalty through all ages. (Psalms 89:2)

On the day of John the Baptist’s circumcision, his father prophesied: “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:76-79)

Piety

Lord, help us to understand the profoundness of Your presence in our world each and every day, in each and every second and in each and every person.

Study

That’s one amazing prophesy by Zechariah. His son will go one giant step beyond the Old Testament prophets. He will announce not that salvation is coming; rather, he will be the one who says salvation is here.

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the Franciscan Capuchin priest who serves as Preacher to the Papal Household, two years ago provided a commentary on this theme, that John’s mode of prophecy is new: “(it) does not consist in proclaiming a future salvation [‘in the last times’], but to reveal the hidden presence of Christ in the world.”

Father Raniero goes on to say:

What does all of this have to say to us? That we too must hold together those two aspects of the office of prophet: On one hand working for social justice and on the other announcing the Gospel. A proclamation of Christ that is not accompanied by an effort toward human betterment would result in something disincarnate and lacking credibility. If we only worked for justice without the proclamation of faith and without the regenerative contact with the word of God, we would soon come to our limits and end up mere protestors.

From John the Baptist we also learn that proclamation of the Gospel and the struggle for justice need not remain simply juxtaposed, without a link between them. It must be precisely the Gospel of Christ that moves us to fight for respect for human beings in such a way as to make it possible for each man to ‘see the salvation of God.’

Take time tonight and tomorrow to worship the baby in the manger. But let us not lose sight amid the crèches and candles and carols of what the living Christ calls us to do every day: work for justice and proclaim the Word.

Action

Welcome the stranger on this day—at Mass, as you finish last-minute shopping, or as family and friends bring people you don’t know well to gatherings. See God’s salvation in and with us all.