Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Advent

King David's words to the prophet Nathan about his desire to build a more suitable house for the ark of God were based on good intention in his love for God. Yet, through Nathan, God spoke to David and reminded him: "I took you from the pasture ... and I have been with you wherever you went...", God-With-Us. God went on to tell David that he will have a son that will build God's house. David's good intention was thus adjusted by God, and David accepted God's word and will for him.

Churches of stone, wood, tin, bamboo, stucco, or brick are not needed by the Holy Trinity; rather, it is we who need them to help us gather together. Gathered, so that the Word of God may be heard and preached, the Sacraments may be celebrated, and, amidst our conversion, the growing virtuous relationships among us may offer us direction for mission. Moreover, even if there is no house of God built by human hands, the hearing and preaching of the Word of God, the celebration of the Sacraments, and our encounters in breaking open our own graced intentions can take place in a field, by a stream, in a prison, at an airport, in a family's home, in an orphanage; God provides.

In the 13th Century, brother Dominic prayed with his first followers on a hill in Fanjeaux, Southern France, and sent the brothers out to the universities to learn and to preach; very risky to send them out so early, yet the fruitfulness continues today. Whether gathered in non-violent prayer/protest against injustice, whether gathered in Chicago praying/listening to the stories of those who are suffering the horrors of domestic violence, or whether gathered in prayer to mitigate and work toward changing what the poor endure in India, it is of God. In India, because crowds of hungry poor scrounge around for food and other items of sustenance daily atop garbage dump-yards, because of violence against children enslaved in trafficking, because of the lynching of Christians and Muslims, and because of systemic inhumane treatment of peoples, we are sent to act by tossing out over others the bounty of mercy, freedom, and compassion of which Zechariah's prophetic canticle proclaims.  God's will is only fully received when acts of mission are underway. It is time to bask in the new Light Who Is Emmanuel.