Motherhood

Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/

Motherhood

Monday, December 9, 2013

Second Week of Advent

Genesis 3:20

Eve became the mother of all the living.

Luke 1:30-33

The angel Gabriel said to Mary, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son.  You shall name him Jesus.  He will be great and called the Son of the Most High and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”

Jesus is born to bring eternal life to “all the living.”  Since the fall of Adam and Eve we’ve constantly fought against death, fighting against each other in the process, rather than give up what the Bible calls the “knowledge of good and evil.”  From dust we come, and to dust we return.  But now things are changing.

As a man, God is coming to the earth.  He comes to us as one of us, and he comes to us in joy. From his Gestapo prison cell Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world.”

Like “everyone who has a conscience,” Bonhoeffer is terrified by this judgment.  But he understands that by his judgment God reclaims us.  “We belong to him. God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love.”

In the end, “God makes us happy as only children can be happy.  God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be – in our sin, in our suffering and death.  We are no longer alone; God is with us.  We are no longer homeless; a bit of the eternal home itself has moved unto us.”

O Mother Mary, how blessed is the fruit of thy womb: Jesus.  The green rises again on this darkened earth.  From God we come, and to God we will return.

The earth belongs to you, Lord, and everything in it.  I belong to you, Lord, and everything in me.  You are closer than my own breath.  With each heartbeat I hear you near, never leaving, never forsaking, always loving, always purifying my thoughts, my words, my deeds.  Oh Jesus, our savior and redeemer, bring your judgment of love.  Your perfect love casts out all our fear.

http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1205