Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr
“The words of the living God cannot be suppressed or put to silence.” That statement, attributed to St Lucy, whose Feast we commemorate today, is a powerful reminder to us as we approach God’s Word today. Jesus, you are the Living Word; as we open your written Word today, open our hearts by your irresistible grace. May the Word read us so that by its power we might be transformed. Grant us the grace we need and humility of heart. We begin our prayer in your mighty Name, Jesus, Amen.
The daily Advent readings are so incredibly hopeful! I snuggle up to them each day, purring like a kitten as God’s loving reassurance surrounds and comforts me. I pray you find them the same. In today’s scriptures, God assures us that He sees us and strengthens us.
In our first reading, Isaiah invites us to turn our gaze toward the heavens and the starry skies. It’s a human tendency to feel small as we look up at the vastness of what our naked eye can see and contemplate the infinite wonders of what we cannot see. We feel deeply our finiteness in the face of the infinite. And yet . . . And yet, just as God has numbered the stars and calls each one by name, so also does He know us, his glorious creation, and call us by our name. Isaiah poses this question incredulously, “Why, O Jacob, do you say, and declare, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God’"? Why indeed? When tempted to feel small and insignificant, lonely and isolated, unseen and overlooked, let us declare the truth – the Creator of the universe, our Creator, knows us intimately and loves us unconditionally.
Isaiah goes on, in glorious poetic form, to laud God’s strength and vigor. This Creator, who made the infinite universe, never tires or grows weary. God upholds and sustains all that He has made in complete and perfect fidelity. Just as our finiteness contrasts with God’s infiniteness, now Isaiah highlights our frailty in light of God’s power. Even the youngest, strongest, and most athletic among us becomes fatigued by exertion and the stressors of life. Our all-powerful God never loses strength or endurance.
God does not leave us alone to stagger along by our own effort. The “Creator of the ends of the earth” regards us and “gives strength to the fainting; for the weak he makes vigor abound.” We stand strong on feeble knees in the confidence God gives us, “They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles' wings; They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.”
We are small and finite, prone to insecurity and self-doubt; God sees us and calls us by name. We are frail and fragile, easily overwhelmed, quick to fatigue, and lacking in endurance; God, who is All-Powerful makes his power perfect in our weakness and fills us with supernatural strength.
Jesus fulfills all of this with his loving invitation, "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light." These are not just pretty words. This is our Lord’s promise to you and to me. If we will but come to Him, He will give us rest. We can know that rest even in the midst of the trials and storms of life. Indeed, it’s in the middle of the tempest that we encounter the peace and calm that is the eye of the storm. This kind of rest is supernatural; we find it only in the bosom of the One who desires to shepherd us and cradle us.
Again, St Lucy’s wise words, “The words of the living God cannot be suppressed or put to silence.” Our scriptures today are powerful promises for us. Let us not suppress them or silence them but let us rejoice in them and allow them to form our hearts and minds in Christ-like confidence. And let us cry out with the Psalmist, “Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.”
May the peace, hope, and expectancy of Advent be yours.
-Elizabeth Wells