Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Breath of heaven
Friday, December 20, 2013
Third Week of Advent
Luke 1:35
The angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”
Breath of Heaven, hold me together
What’s it like, this ecstatic encounter with God? Ask Teresa of Avila, who made the kind of sounds so her fellow nuns might have said, “I want what she’s having!” We are held together by our bodies, our skin, our skeleton, our hormones, our joy. We are sometimes just All Body, and God has created us this way.
Be forever near me, Breath of Heaven
Gabriel came to Mary and God filled her body with Jesus. Filled her mind with dreams and singing. Filled her life and made her whole. Can I hear her singing when I cry out in fear? Wasn’t Mary afraid? Yes, but when she was afraid, God through Gabriel said, “Mary.” Later Jesus too when he’d been killed and rose again said it so, “Mary.” She saw through tears and fear and knew what God wanted her to know.
Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness
There must be laughter in heaven and all around as Mary says, “Yes.” God dances a jig with the angels, so happy and full. “May it be unto me as you have said,” she said. YES. Rejoice. Now is the time.
Pour over me Your holiness for You are holy
Breath of Heaven
God wastes nothing, and in this fullness of time God certainly didn’t waste a minute. There and then, dizzy and overwhelmed, Mary was pregnant. The incarnation was in that instant complete, to be worked out detail by detail over what those on earth call “time,” but complete nonetheless.
Lord, how can this be? O, so beautiful is all you say. Why do I want to know? I guess I don’t, Lord, not once I see your face. I had heard of you, but now I have seen you. And I am undone with love, melted into your arms like wax and reshaped by your sweet soft hand.
 Lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/breath-of-heaven-lyrics-amy-grant.html
Song: (don’t miss this one …) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW2OBT-5qfc
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1216
