FOUND TO BE WITH CHILD

PRAYER MOMENT 

Thursday 18 December 2014

FOUND TO BE WITH CHILD

             

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:18-24)

Reflection. Matthew is brief about the birth of Jesus; his emphasis is on Joseph, who like his namesake of old cooperates in an awesome way with the will of God. Joseph adopted Mary’s child; he was not his father. By his astonishing faith he accepts the child is born of the fatherhood of God. Mary gave birth even though she was a virgin. Both Matthew and Luke insist on this and it became part of the belief of the church from the earliest times. And this becomes the source of the formulation of the church in the fifth century that Jesus was one person with two natures, human and divine. Some flinched at this awkward definition and could not take it. But it was the best description that poor humans could come up with of a mystery that is both beyond us and yet the very essence of our own destiny.

Prayer. Lord, as we rejoice in the birth of Jesus lead us into a deep joy and reverence for the great mystery of ‘God with us.’ Amen.  

David Harold-Barry SJ