Reflection for December 12
Bro. Mickey McGrath, OSFS, Our Lady of Guadalupe
How will I rejoice today?
In our first reading today, we are invited to sing and to rejoice because our Lord is coming to us and will dwell with us. Wow — This is big!
In our daily lives, surely, we rejoice and sing some days. This invitation, I believe, is more enduring and all-encompassing than our desires to sing or to rejoice on just some days. What does it mean to be one who abides in singing and in rejoicing? To be part of a community that sings and rejoices? How can we do more singing and rejoicing?
Sure, some days we’re all in. We’re singing and rejoicing! On other days when it’s not happening for one reason or another, all we must do is pay attention! I find that if I’m paying attention, I can find others who are singing and rejoicing. They’re always around and joining them is a privilege and a grace. Perhaps encountering them is God’s invitation. Laughing, rejoicing, singing with a person out of one’s circle of trust is the way of Advent. It is the way we make way for the Lord who is coming to be in our midst in new ways this Christmas.
This past week as I watched my daughter’s volleyball game, my attention was captured by the other team. Their energy and positivity, the ways in which they rejoiced and sang together inspired me, invited me to hope. Their jovial ways filled me with inspiration. It drew me to them, “the opponents.”
Simple things, enjoying together, rejoicing and singing. Let’s live Advent this way — being inspired by the ways people sing, dance and rejoice. Let us join our voices with theirs to build community and to make room for the Lord’s arrival!
Laura Marcucio