GOD’S DESIRE: TO BE WITH US
Peace to you from the garden loved by the Lord!
We have just started the new liturgical year with the first Sunday of Advent. It is a strong time in which the church prefers the mystery of God who makes himself small. All our faces are oriented to Bethlehem, the city of bread (literal meaning), in which the unnameable is the great God who makes himself accessible to all and becomes good bread for us. It is wonderful and at the same time fascinating, to perceive how the infinite God, the King of the universe, the Creator of heaven and earth, has bowed over our humanity, becoming one of us: it is the mystery of the Incarnation. The immense becomes small, the inaccessible makes itself known, the unnamable allows himself to be called by Name, the elusive allows itself to be taken up, it is our infinite God who is decidedly limited voluntarily in our human condition because he wishes that we can return to Him, to Paradise!
All this recalls that prophecy of Isaiah that we will hear on Christmas night: "The people who walked in darkness has seen a great light" (Is 9:1). In this verse we talk about a 'dark' condition in which humanity lives and which then finds itself visited by a great light! Here for us, this great light is not abstract but has very specific features: the tender face of the Son of God. With Saint Joseph and with Mary Most Holy, we contemplate the wonder of this mystery.
Let's make our own the prayer of St. Francis who in the Letter to the entire Order states: “O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread! Brothers, look at the humility of God, and pour out your hearts before Him! Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally! " (Letter to the whole Order, FF: 221, 26-29).
May the Queen of peace help us to welcome and contemplate this mystery in the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, we therefore thank Him for his benevolence towards us. We intercede for our humanity in need of the true God.
Happy Advent and good wait.
Be blessed, from the Lord's Garden.
