Saturday of the Third Week of Advent

Today's Mass Readings

Advent is a time of preparation. For four weeks, we are constantly readying ourselves for the coming of Christ. We are focused on the fact that soon (and very soon) we are going to see the King. Yet, while we are so deeply engaged in our own self-preparation, we can easily overlook one of the most inspiring mysteries of our Faith: That God chose to allow human beings to cooperate in the salvation of the human race. This mystery reaches perfection in the Incarnation, when God became a human being in Jesus Christ, and so it is among the things that we ought to consciously celebrate next week. The more deeply we reflect on Advent, of course, the more we realize that this time of preparation should actually help us to recognize more clearly the importance of human cooperation in the divine plan. The very fact that we are asked to “prepare ourselves” for Christ’s coming is one of the ways that God allows us to participate in His plan of salvation. God gives us a role in our own salvation, just as He gives us a role in spreading the Gospel to others. When we accept this responsibility, we are helping to mediate the grace of salvation that Christ has obtained for all of us. Rather than begrudge this work, we ought to recognize it as a gift from God, for we are granted an ongoing opportunity to participate in the establishment of God’s will, which we consistently pray to come about “on earth as it is in Heaven.” As Christians, we are called to accept this opportunity each day, in whatever way God presents it to us. We are called to make cooperation with God a fundamental part of our lives in all our activities.

Unfortunately, human history often seems to show us more examples of refusal than acceptance. In our First Reading, King Ahaz of Judah rejects the opportunity that God offers to him. In the case of Ahaz, God gives him the chance to choose anything that he desires as a sign of God’s faithfulness, “deep as the netherworld or high as the sky!” But Ahaz refuses God’s call to participation and claims that accepting this offer would actually be “tempting” God, although it is not clear how this would be the case. In our own lives, we may find that we make equally incoherent excuses from time to time, when God asks us for our cooperation and we, for our own reasons, refuse Him.

Of course, the sign that God ultimately chooses when Ahaz refuses to cooperate with Him, that “a virgin will conceive and bear a son,” finds perfect fulfillment in the coming of Jesus. This contrast is the subject of today’s Gospel because, unlike Ahaz, the Blessed Virgin Mary accepts the offer that God makes to her. As such, she becomes a willing participant in salvation history and a model for all of us when God offers us a chance to participate in the work of salvation.

As the third week of Advent draws to a close, we ought to reflect on all the ways that we have failed to answer God’s call over the past year and resolve to find new opportunities to participate in God’s loving plan of salvation for the world.

- Mathew Minix