Mass Readings Audio
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121921.cfm

The Fourth Sunday of Advent – December 19, 2021

Welcome to the one hundred and ninety-fifth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life. If you haven’t already, please subscribe via your favorite podcast app or on the right side of the page so I can send you notifications when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend you think would benefit from By Your Life.

My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It is my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace, and to trust that it is good for business. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.

In this edition, we will reflect on the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. There is so much in all of these readings, yet what stood out to me was the very last verse of the Gospel. “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:45)

As I thought about it, Elizabeth knew what happened to Zachariah because he didn’t believe what the angel had told him. He didn’t trust the “Almighty-ness” of the Lord. Now, he was unable to speak and that’s not exactly what I’d call blessed.

Elizabeth knew what the Lord had done for her. Yet, she may have been amazed that Mary came to her. Afterall, “she went into seclusion for five months,” (Lk 1:24) after she conceived, so how did Mary, who lived 90 miles away in a pre-5G culture, even know she was pregnant. As far as that goes, how did Elizabeth know that Mary was carrying Jesus? Babies move a lot in the womb. How was this movement so different that she exclaimed “for at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy”? (Lk 1:44)

Both women were “filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Lk 1:41 and Lk 1:35) Both women were blessed. Both women believed.

But which came first? Which comes first for us? Are we blessed because we believe? Or, do we believe because we are blessed?

This question is like one I pose to my clients when we are doing strategic planning: “Is your future a function of what you do now, or is what you do now a function of how you view your future?” The answer I get is usually “a little of both.” I suppose the same goes for being blessed and believing.

I often am referred to clients who have gotten to the point where they’re tired of spinning their wheels. They work hard and don’t seem to be getting anywhere. They keep doing the same things and hoping for different results. At a point of desperation, they ask for help. Many of us can relate to this in both our business and our spiritual lives. We get to the point where we have dug ourselves into a hole and finally accept the fact that we are incapable of getting out by ourselves.

We need to stop trying to be in control of everything as if we were. We need to stop trying to do everything on our own as if we could. What do we do instead? The author of the Letter to the Hebrews, tells us that instead of what we’ve been doing, “Behold, I come to do your will, O God. (Heb 10:7)

So, is your future a function of what you do now, or is what you do now a function of how you view your future? Similarly, is your faith a function of what you do now, or is what you do now, a function of your faith? Perhaps, it is also a little of both.

If you are not satisfied with where your faith is currently, how do you enter this “chicken and egg” causality dilemma and affect a change in your belief and/or blessings? I’d like to suggest the answer is to choose to, or at least, choose to want to, draw nearer to the Lord. As the Psalmist sang, “Then we will no more withdraw from you; give us new life, and we will call upon your name,” (Ps 80:18-19) we just need to choose to stop withdrawing from him and call his name. Sometimes you have to just want to increase your faith enough to do the things you need to do to accept the gift of faith.

The first verse of Sunday’s Gospel reads, “Mary set out.” (Lk 1:39) She did something. We too need to act, to do something. If your faith needs boosting, do the things that will boost your faith. Daily Mass, praying the rosary, Eucharistic adoration, journaling, reading and meditating, studying the lives of the saints, and writings of great theologians, are a few of my favorite things to do. I guarantee you will not be the same when you adopt these practices.

Hopefully, during this Advent season, you’ve been doing some of the things you need to do to accept the gift that is already there ready for you. As I’ve been making a spiritual journey through Advent preparing myself for God’s gift of himself at Christmas, I’ve also been making other preparations for Christmas too. The tree is up. We have lights strung across the front door of the house. There are Santas, nutcrackers, and snowmen everywhere. My collection of nativity sets from around the world is out, awaiting the Baby Jesus to be placed in the crib. Gifts have been purchased, wrapped, and placed under the tree. Everything is done but the waiting.

I’ve never been one of those people who asks what you want for Christmas and then goes and buys it for you. I prefer to surprise you with a gift I think you’d like or know that you need but you’d never buy it for yourself. I love to pick something special for you and then, I love to see how you respond to the surprise. I love gift-giving.

I always hope that the other person will like the gift I’ve given them. I hope that they will appreciate it, even if it wasn’t on their list. I certainly hope they will use it. But, sometimes, I’m disappointed because they are disappointed. They didn’t like it, it wasn’t what they wanted, and they didn’t appreciate what I gave them. I’ll find things I’ve given my kids, unopened in a drawer somewhere, and it makes me a little sad. But you know what, I don’t stop giving.

I suppose God feels this way too. He’s the Greatest Gift-Giver of All and sometimes we don’t even bother to open the gift He gave us. Sometimes we open his gift, but because it isn’t what we asked for, we don’t use it. We put it aside, stick it in a drawer and let it go to waste. But God doesn’t stop giving either.

Sometimes, we don’t think we need what he has given us, and sometimes we can’t figure out how we could possibly use it. When a gift doesn’t fit our understanding of the world, we question the wisdom of the gift-giver, like my 96-year-old mom did when we gave her a smart speaker a few years ago.

God, the ultimate Gift-Giver, doesn’t fit into our common sense. He is uncommon and beyond our ability to understand. He chooses the smallest to accomplish the greatest things. In the first reading from the prophet Micah, the Lord said, “You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.” (Mi 5:1) What? That’s crazy!

I know my mom thought we were crazy to give her a smart speaker. But, now, she understands how to ask it to turn on the lights, play her music, or make an announcement. She’s not quite conquered how to set an alarm, but she’s grown in her understanding and is experiencing the benefits.

So it is with our faith. God wants to give us so much more than we are capable of accepting—on our own, anyway. So, we ask for help, like my mom does with anything that is related to technology. Her biggest problem is that she doesn’t trust herself with the technology. She doesn’t believe she can master it. I’m always telling her, “your biggest problem is that you don’t think you can.”

Like Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small, in our own eyes, but not in the eyes of God.
The problem is not that we’re too small, the real problem is our belief is too small. Elizabeth said, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:45) You who believed, are blessed. If you make the choice to believe, you will be blessed, and your blessings will increase your belief.

This Christmas let’s unwrap the perfect gift and ask God to deepen our understanding of what we have received. Like my mom with her smart-speaker, let’s not leave the real power of the gift untouched. What began with Mary’s belief that what was spoken to her would be fulfilled, the Baby in the manger is the beginning of the gift that leads to the Cross, Death and Resurrection. The ultimate gift of the Son who does the will of the Father. “By this ‘will,’ we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Heb 10:10)

Bishop Robert Barron said, “Jesus means the coming together of divinity and humanity in such a way that humanity is transfigured and brought up into a share in the divine life. God became one of us that we might become a sharer in his own life.” We need to keep discovering the fullness of what it means to share in the divine.

Guaranteed, it is far beyond our capacity to even imagine, but so worth the effort to keep seeking it. We just need to turn around and ask for help. Like the voice behind that smart-speaker, God is always there listening. God hears us. God answers us. When we ask for His help our lives begin to change. Believe it and you will see it.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us to participate in the divine life which is ours through Jesus Christ.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth.

May God bless you abundantly this Christmas, so you do the will of the Father and glorify the Lord by your life.  Amen

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