O Come Let Us Adore Him

Oh that we all would worship like the shepherds in today’s gospel. First of all, they were minding their own business, doing their shepherding thing in the fields, when the skies opened up and voices, choirs of angels, and all kinds of drama rocked their rugged shepherdy campout. How many times are we just minding our own business, doing our thing, and heaven breaks in to get our attention? There may not be choirs of angels singing “Glory to God in the highest!”, but there may be an amazing sunset, or a phone call from a favorite friend, or a cancer diagnosis, or a love letter in the mail, or an unexpected death, or a breath taking moment of grace….Because these shepherds were in their ordinary, it made room for the extraordinary to enter in. Our ordinary daily lives set the stage for God’s extra-ness to pursue us. I can’t help but to imagine these raggedy shepherds yelling, “Road trip!!!!” right after the heavens closed up. It says they went in haste. Raise your hand if you have ever had a moment when you immediately dropped everything to go find something. What they found was so simple, so ordinary, and so astounding: a poor family with a newborn baby in a stable of all places. Stables and barns would have been a shepherd’s comfort zone, and so the astounding part was that the same God that opened up the heavens with choirs of angels chose their turf to place His glory! God wants to dwell among us if we are brave enough to find him in those places in our lives that seem the most absurd. 

After they spent time in adoration, the way we do when we gaze upon a newborn baby in the nursery of the hospital or while sleeping in their beds, they felt compelled to go tell everyone about Him. Do I tell everyone about Him and how He has pierced my ordinary with His glory? It says that all were amazed by what they said. A lot of times God chooses the unlikely, the rough around the edges, the not so smart, the unassuming, the rogue, the rugged, the simple, and the lowly to get the word out because it is surprising and God loves to surprise us because we pay attention. After these dudes came in to visit the Holy Family in a whirlwind of gruff, but reverent awe, they returned to their ordinary, but glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard! Do my encounters with grace return me to my ordinary praising God, or do I skip that part and just pick up where I left off? One detail that touched me this morning was that these scruffy visitors in all their outdoorsy ruggedness moved the heart of Mary to ponder and treasure the things that God was revealing to her. It was their unlikeliness and their unabashed acceptance of Jesus’ presence that made her think more deeply about the workings of the Holy Spirit. May we also be moved by those unlikely characters that God places before us daily. May our hearts recognize the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the simple, ordinary, and small moments of grace that visit us often. May we, in our own unlikeliness, share the unabashed acceptance of Jesus present among us AND in us. 

The gospel ends with the naming of Jesus, which means “God saves.” A friend recently reminding me that Jesus’ favorite role is to be our Savior and in order for Him to be that, we need to accept that we are not perfect. The shepherds in today’s gospel give us permission to embrace our unlikeliness. May we seek Him in haste, may we adore Him dwelling among us, may we tell everyone about His glory, and may we let Him keep saving us. It is well with my soul. Happy New Year, friends!!

The Octave Day of Christmas
Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God
Lectionary: 18

Reading 1 NM 6:22-27

The LORD said to Moses: 
"Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: 
This is how you shall bless the Israelites.
Say to them:
The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon
you, and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and
give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, 
and I will bless them."

Responsorial Psalm PS 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8.

R. (2a) May God bless us in his mercy.
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.
R. May God bless us in his mercy.
May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.
R. May God bless us in his mercy.
May the peoples praise you, O God;
may all the peoples praise you!
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him! 
R. May God bless us in his mercy.

Reading 2 GAL 4:4-7

Brothers and sisters:
When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,
born of a woman, born under the law, 
to ransom those under the law, 
so that we might receive adoption as sons.
As proof that you are sons, 
God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, 
crying out, "Abba, Father!"
So you are no longer a slave but a son, 
and if a son then also an heir, through God.

Alleluia HEB 1:1-2

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets;
in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel LK 2:16-21

The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this,
they made known the message 
that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed
by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart.
Then the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen, 
just as it had been told to them.

When eight days were completed for his circumcision,
he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.