Monday, December 23, 2019

Advent Themes for Focusing Prayer Part 4: Love


This year, the fourth week of Advent was very short, but it wasn’t as short as it could have been.  There are years when the fourth Sunday of Advent is also Christmas Eve, so the fourth week of Advent ends up being only a few short hours long.  Nevertheless, the fourth week of Advent has its own special theme for focusing our prayer:  Love.  And how appropriate is it that in the last hours or days before Christmas, we focus on the virtue that Jesus Christ embodies as fully human and fully divine?

Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is love incarnate, love made flesh.  He is the fulfillment of God the Father’s love for humankind.  The oft-referenced verse, John 3:16, tells us “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (NABRE translation).

Jesus shows us how to love more perfectly.  He teaches us that we are to love those around us (our “neighbors”) and he gives us a model of how to love them.  At Christmas, we recall Jesus’ first coming at his birth in Bethlehem.  Now, invite him to come again, into your heart to perfect how you love others, and ask him to help you love more perfectly.

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