December 15/Third Sunday of Advent
The LORD, your God, is in your midst; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival. ~ Zephaniah 3.17
There have been times along the way when my connection to God simply dropped. Many years ago, as a young mother of two children under three, living in a new city, I felt isolated and spiritually paralyzed. Beleaguered by the transition from a high-profile job in bustling Manhattan to a life of changing diapers and reading board books, I sank into what Ignatius of Loyola called “spiritual desolation.” But God was working on the inside; with the help of a priest and a young nun, who conveyed to me the sure fact of God’s love for me, I crossed through that dark period. God had been with me all the time, even though I hadn’t felt it. In those moments when our spiritual connection goes dormant, Scripture may console us. For the good news that threads its way through the Bible is that God is with us, always, at every step. He is an abiding presence – strolling with Adam and Eve in the garden, prodding Moses to lead the enslaved Hebrews to freedom, sending his spirit, in Hebrew ruach, to rest upon his beloved, flawed King David. And today, in Zephaniah’s exuberant outburst, he is the delighted LORD who breaks forth in jubilant song at Israel’s homecoming. A singing God — what a delightful illustration of the divine presence among us, a God who shares our joys and bears our sorrows. As we strive to know the unknowable, God reveals himself to us in his Incarnate Word: swaddled infant, teacher and healer, the Son of God on the cross, who became one of us to save all of us. In our suffering and in our singing, this Lord — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is truly Emmanuel, God with us.
Exalted and exultant Lord, I thank you for accompanying me through the peaks and valleys of my life, for weeping with me when I mourn, and singing with me when I rejoice. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121524.cfm
To hear the Choir of St. John’s College (Cambridge) sing “E’en so, Lord Jesus,” by Paul Manz, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdWN5DQ77Wk
