December 21, 2020
Monday of the Fourth
Week of Advent
Lectionary: 197
Hark! my lover–here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.
My lover speaks; he says to me,
“Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one,
and come!
“For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!
“O my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret recesses of the cliff,
Let me see you,
let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet,
and you are lovely.”
or
Zep 3:14-18a
Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD has removed the judgment against you,
he has turned away your enemies;
The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear.
On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
He will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1a; 3a) Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a
new song.
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.
Sing to him a new song;
pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts of gladness.
R. Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.
But the plan of the LORD stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
R. Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield,
For in him our hearts rejoice;
in his holy name we trust.
R. Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
O Emmanuel, our
King and Giver of Law:
come to save us,
Lord our God!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Mary set out in those days
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
“Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”
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Discover that You are Beautiful to God!
Do you know how beautiful you are to God? Do you feel his love enough?
We often miss out on this because we put up walls between us and other people to protect ourselves from getting hurt, to hide our secret sins and flaws, and to keep ourselves in our comfort zones rather than risk stepping out into the unfamiliar and unpleasant.
Walls that serve as boundaries built by faith in our battles against evil are good, but walls that serve as fortresses, built by fear, block out love and imprison us in an on-going series of evidence that seems to justify our fears.
Every decision we make that holds us back from being all that God created us to be is another brick added to fortresses that will eventually collapse in on us. Each brick seems to make perfect sense, but when we wall ourselves in, we wall God out.
Is God worth risking everything for? Is love?
Are we willing to open up so that we can be totally flooded by his love?
In the reading from Song of Songs, we call God our "Lover" and he calls us his "dove." Hear your Lover calling you to stop hiding. You are his beloved. He calls you "My beautiful one." Regardless of how ugly you think you are, he sees you as beautiful! Even if you think your hair is the wrong color or you're too tall or too short or too fat or too bald or too flawed or too this or too that or not enough of what you wish you were, he sees you as beautiful.
When I realized this, I stopped hiding my grey hair behind brown dye and started showing off the true color that God had chosen for it. Apparently, he likes grey hair a lot! He gave me my first one when I was only nineteen. Who am I to tell him that he doesn't know what "beautiful" is?
What do you think is so ugly about you -- your looks, your personality, your sinful past -- that you have been hiding it in the "secret recesses of the cliff"? Your Lover is saying: "Let me see you, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and you are lovely."
When Jesus died on the cross, he took with him all that was ugly about you. He became ugly for you, becoming unrecognizable (see Isaiah 52:14).
Even when you're complaining to God, your voice is sweet to him, because he treasures the time you give him. Even when you feel bad about yourself, you are lovely to him, because he admires you, his wonderful creation. Sure he's saddened by your ugly sins, because your sins wall you away from him and he yearns for your closeness. And oh how he rejoices when you return to him through repentance! But always always always, he cherishes you. You put a twinkle in his eye. With a great big huge beaming smile, he tells his angels, "Look! There's my precious dove!"
Look! He is coming to you, springing across your mountains of problems, leaping across the hills, running to you because he loves you so very, very much!
Spend a few minutes, now, to go deeper into discovering how beautiful you are to God.
Today's Prayer
I seek the encounter with You, Lord Jesus. I want to believe in You and receive Your Spirit in fullness. I long for my life to be a praise to Your Holy Name. Amen.
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God Bless You.....
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