13 December 2019
Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr
“This generation” always has a hard time accepting the “other” that comes and does not quite fit into it, especially when that “other” is truly Other (Mt 11:-16-19). It matters little how the other is “other,” that otherness will always form the basis of a critique for all who accuse others with the Accuser.
The hardest “other” to accept is the one whose otherness reveals God in our own midst. It is always in his own people that a prophet is least accepted. But it is in that people that the prophet is most prophetic! It is precisely that genuine belonging that makes it clear that what is “other” cannot simply be attributed to some alien custom or culture but rather to an invitation of grace, which will always call us to live a life that surpasses what we are used to and comfortable with.
Let us be attentive to that grace which can irritate us like an undocumented alien that we don’t want to welcome into our lives. Yes, our lives might seem simpler and richer if we push away the unfamiliar grace, but when we push it away, we push away the divine life that is offered to us. Instead, let us receive the grace that is offered by our neighbors into our hearts, for it is through this grace that we will learn “what is for our good,” and be “led where we should go” (cf. Is 48:17-19), so that the Advent that we live is not one in which we await our own idols in a consumerist world, but rather the true God whose Advent passes through those whom we least expect.