Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Simply irresistible

Homily for Tuesday of the 1st Week of Advent
1 December 2009
St. Martin Chapel
Benedictine College

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A baby has it made. A baby is irresistible. Everyone has seen the most rough and tough dads and grandpas and uncles turn into butter around a baby. A baby is so vulnerable that it is everyone's natural instinct to protect it. Leave a baby alone, and someone will come to its rescue, every time.

Adam and Eve, who desired to be learned, actually unlearned how to trust God to provide every good thing for them. They chose to be independent over being vulnerable. They chose to care for themselves, rather than allowing God to care for them. In answer to this disobedience, God decides to do the unthinkable; he becomes a child to those who refuse to be his children. To those who choose to resist Him, he makes himself irresistible.

Jesus, vulnerable as a baby, remains childlike, refusing to grow old and independent according to the wisdom of the world so that he may receive everything in trust that His Father wishes to reveal to Him. The Father reveals His will that even unto his last breath, Jesus remain as vulnerable and as irresistible to us as He was on that night in Bethlehem. Christ, the irresistible baby, asks us as a man from the cross, whether he has remained like a child, trusting in the wisdom of His Father to the very end. +m

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