BECOMING CHRIST-LIKE
Return to God’s word. Allow it to transform you. Notice how your faith is being deepened and your way of life motivated.
COMMENTS
Today, we return to reading the text (Luke 2:1-7) for the third time. As we encounter God’s word, we ponder how this text is making a difference in our journey of faith. We gaze in awe at how this “Birth of Christ” illumination is touching our hearts. We wonder about the possibilities this text and illumination together are opening up for our daily living, in other words, how we are becoming Christ-like. Of course, being more like Christ is a life-long process of becoming. We not only strive for that way of living here and now, we also know deep within ourselves that we can always do better. And so, we are not quite there yet, but becoming. This rich honesty in ourselves helps us to become more open to the possibilities of God in our lives.
I began this initial encounter with the “Birth of Christ” this fourth week of Advent with great expectancy, waiting for the Coming of Christ. Perhaps that’s why I was immediately drawn into asking where was the baby Jesus in the illumination. And now, as I have prayed and lived with this text and illumination all week, I am not at all taken by that question. It does not matter anymore. Instead, seeing the Light of Christ reflected on the faces of those at Bethlehem has caused me to look beyond where I expect Jesus to be. I now look directly on the faces of people all around and know that our Lord Jesus is here, reflected in the ordinary faces of those who, like the shepherds, seek him out. Jesus is here – never lost, but always found.
Are you also looking but not seeing Jesus? Where has your life been touched and changed by prayerfully practicing visio divina this week in preparing for the Birth of Christ?
May your life be richly touched and blessed by the Coming of the Christ Child.
“A light will shine on us this day: the Lord is born for us.”
– Fr Kirtley Yearwood
© Birth of Christ, Donald Jackson, 2002. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.