The daily choice of people to attend to the promptings of
God is brought into focus today by the texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary.
The Prophet Isaiah is petitioning the King Ahaz to trust in Providence to be
with Jerusalem as the forces that seem to be gathering against the city appear
in the future. Friar Jude Winkler comments that Ahaz desires to seek the
assistance of Assyria in this situation, thus placing Jerusalem under the
control of the foreign empire and forcing the Hebrews to worship the gods of
the Assyrian empire. Isaiah proclaims that the sign to the King that he should
trust in God will be the birth of a child (likely in the family of Isaiah or
Ahaz) who would be called Immanuel, “God is with us”. The psalmist answers the
question of who can ascend to the mountain of the Lord and stand in His
Presence. The person of clean hands and pure heart is able to move toward God.
The state of purification to approach God is presented in the person of Mary in
the Gospel from Luke. Friar Jude notes that the tense of the verb used by the
Angel Gabriel in the text to announce the grace filled state of Mary indicates
that this state continues as something which has always been. The request that
she, a virgin, bear a child, the Son of God, is beyond her comprehension. The
trust in Providence that she proclaims by her “yes” is that faith which allows
the will of God to be active in drawing people to the deep relationship with
God that has the intimacy of child within mother.
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