1st week of Advent: Tuesday
Reading: Luke 10:21-24
‘Filled with joy by the Holy Spirit, Jesus said:
‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’
Then turning to his disciples he spoke to them in private, ‘Happy the eyes that see what you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.’
Reflection In this beautiful gospel passage we are invited into a moment of great intimacy between Jesus and the Father. We can only imagine the beauty of the encounter when filled with the Holy Spirit Jesus blesses and thanks God for their shared divinity and for the mission that has been entrusted to him of making God’s name known and loved by all the peoples of the world. Honouring the sacredness of the message and the bond of love that Jesus shares with his disciples he reminds them of the privilege that is theirs to be given access to the mysteries of the gospel.
At this Advent time, we too are privileged to be invited into this deeper intimacy with God. The WORD is broken open each day for us and we are asked to let it deeply penetrate and transform our lives. We are gifted by the Holy Spirit and called to be ‘Joyful bearers of the Word to our wounded and fragile World.’ In the power of the same spirit, we who may feel that we are ‘neither learned nor clever but mere children’ share in this intimacy with the divine.
We pray that we will be faithful to the trust placed within us and share the good news of the kingdom of God with each other.