Advent - December 17

December 17 - O Sapientia
“O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.”

“The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky proclaims his handiwork.”
Psalm 19:1

Everywhere the psalmist looks, he beholds the handprints of God. The rocks really do cry out, “Glory!” The world reverberates with the radiating glory of God’s unfailing love.

In spite of such all-encompassing love, we stumble blindly and curse the light as though it was darkness. Our proclamations of peace flow from hearts of violence. We know the rippling effects of chaos that tear through the heart of all things. As Bob Dylan says, “Everything is Broken.” From broken hearts to broken families to broken countries, we are hurt, and we hurt.

Every cruel word gives plants seed of pain that produces the fruit of cruelty. We long for companions and then we hurt those same companions through selfish acts and words. We long from acceptance but fail to accept others. Life seems to be an endless cycle of pain between humans. The heart aches for salvation.

Into this heart of darkness, shines the light of hope. The Word of the Father, sustaining all things, is made flesh and dwells among us in a frail, baby. The way of Salvation is the way weakness, of frailty, of risk, of humiliation. The way of Salvation comes by the way of death.

He becomes weak, so that we might become strong. He becomes sin so that we might become sinless. He is humbled, so that we might be exalted.

He is born as babe in the manger, so that we might be born as a child of the kingdom.

Into the chaos of creation comes the harmony of God. He bears the breach and reverberates healing love into all things. By His Word of Salvation, the Father calls us into the light, filling us with light and revealing the blinding glory of His radiating love in the heavens above and the earth below.

Come let us behold Him. The Word of God, the hope of humanity, the Savior of the world.