Lord, Make Me Your Dwelling Place

Lord, Make Me Your Dwelling Place

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

By Colleen O'Sullivan

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion!  See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the Lord.  (Zechariah 2:14))

And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace!  The Lord is with you.”  But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God…  Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word.”   (Luke 1:28-30, 38a) 

Piety

I’ll hold You in the beginning

  You will hold me in the end

Every moment in the middle,

  Make my heart Your Bethlehem

Be born in me.

(from Be Born in Me (Mary), music inspired by The Story, lyrics by Francesca Battistelli.  To listen to the song, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsXOP7aQeqQ)

Study

Something shocking happened in my parish on Sunday.  One of the deacons was preaching and, in the midst of his homily, he asked the congregation, “How many of you have a personal relationship with Christ?  If you do, stand up.”  I stood, fully expecting the entire congregation to follow suit.  To my utter dismay, from the vantage point of the choir I saw that only a smattering of individuals throughout the church responded.  Were the others totally zoned out?  Did they maybe not hear the question?  I really, really don’t want to believe that this reflects the true state of affairs.

Our readings today are about this very subject - God’s relationship with us and our response.  As Zechariah prophesied, God did come to dwell with us.  God loved us so much he sent his only Son, Jesus, to be one of us, to share our humanity in every way but sin.  God loves us beyond measure but never compels us to love him in return.  As we know from the Gospels, many people in Jesus’ day turned their backs on him, refused to listen to him, searched for any excuse to have him arrested, and finally nailed him to the Cross and left him to die.  No, God never forces himself on anyone.

But God never stops loving us.  God not only entered our world in the form of an infant in a manger some 2,000 years ago; God seeks to dwell within each of us today.  The words the angel addressed to Mary are the same words God whispers to us:  Don’t be afraid.  You have found favor with me.  I asked Mary to be the mother of my Son.  I’m asking you if your heart can be my dwelling place today.  

If we open our hearts to the Lord, there’s no telling what great things God may accomplish through us.  Mary wasn’t anyone special, just a poor, young Jewish girl from an obscure part of the world betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph.  In the ordinary course of events, we would never have heard of her.  Yet, because of her humble yes to God, she is known throughout the world as the Mother of God.

St. Juan Diego was a poor Aztec nobody.  But because his heart was open when our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to him in 1531, God was ultimately able to use him in the conversion of approximately 6 million Aztecs over a 6-year period.  (To read more about our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast we celebrate today, click on http://www.catholic.org/about/guadalupe.php.)

Action

Last weekend, I went to a Christmas program where I heard the song Be Born in Me (Mary).  The music and singing were gorgeous.  The line that keeps playing in my head is “Make my heart your Bethlehem.”  What greater gift could we offer the Lord during Advent than a heart open and ready to receive him?  Christ wants to find a home in every one of us.  What do you need to do to make him welcome?