Surrender to find the signs in life

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today build on the idea that the signs of God presence we sometimes seek may be present in the events and circumstances of our daily living.

The Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall be with child,
and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.
Isaiah 7:12 pic.twitter.com/BgshxMGfAn

— resplandorEN (@resplandoren_) December 19, 2017

The Prophet Isaiah declares the sign of the child named Emmanuel to King Ahaz. The angel Gabriel seeks a yes from Mary to be the Mother of Incarnation in the Gospel from Luke. The text from Isaiah is interpreted to refer to the birth of Christ.

[7:14] Isaiah’s sign seeks to reassure Ahaz that he need not fear the invading armies of Syria and Israel in the light of God’s promise to David (2 Sm 7:12–16). The oracle follows a traditional announcement formula by which the birth and sometimes naming of a child is promised to particular individuals (Gn 16:11; Jgs 13:3). The young woman: Hebrew ‘almah designates a young woman of marriageable age without specific reference to virginity. The Septuagint translated the Hebrew term as parthenos, which normally does mean virgin, and this translation underlies Mt 1:23. Emmanuel: the name means “with us is God.” Since for the Christian the incarnation is the ultimate expression of God’s willingness to “be with us,” it is understandable that this text was interpreted to refer to the birth of Christ.

The Gospel from Luke makes the announcement to Mary of the birth of Jesus parallel to the announcement to Zechariah of the birth of John.

[1:26–38] The announcement to Mary of the birth of Jesus is parallel to the announcement to Zechariah of the birth of John. In both the angel Gabriel appears to the parent who is troubled by the vision (Lk 1:11–12, 26–29) and then told by the angel not to fear (Lk 1:13, 30). After the announcement is made (Lk 1:14–17, 31–33) the parent objects (Lk 1:18, 34) and a sign is given to confirm the announcement (Lk 1:20, 36). The particular focus of the announcement of the birth of Jesus is on his identity as Son of David (Lk 1:32–33) and Son of God (Lk 1:32, 35).

Michal Hunt of Agape Bible Study offers a comparison chart of the accounts of the births in Luke. Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB cites the devotion of an elderly Italian religious sister expressed in a poem focussing on the humanity of Mary, on the theme of Experiencing the Possibility of the Impossible.

Don't smile, brothers and sisters,And don't shrug your shoulders:Our God is fascinating and what he does always surpasses the impossible.God looked upon a woman and loved her,And he who loves even before looking at the faceSeeks the beauty that lies in the heart.God looked upon a woman who was from the raceOf the little ones without name,Those that live far away from palaces.Those who work in kitchens,Those who come from the numbers of the humble and the forgotten,Those that never open their mouths and who are accustomed to poverty.God looked upon her and found her to be beautiful,And this woman was joined to him as if she were his beloved --For life and for death.From now on all generations will call her blessed.God looked upon a woman. Her name was Mary.As a woman who gives herself, she believed,And during the night, in a grotto, she cried out with pain,And from her womb God himself was born,Bringing with him salvation and peace, like treasures for all eternity.As a woman who surrenders herself and never regrets it,She believed against all the obscurity that enveloped her,Against all the doubts that filled her.From now on her name will be sung, because God took herAnd she gave herself to him, she, Mary, one of us.And God crowned her with stars and robed her with the sun,And under her feet God placed the moon.Her name is Mary, and if you looked upon her Lord, it is because on Our earth filled with women and men, you found such beauty.

Luis Rodriguez, S.J. comments that God is offering us signs in the events and circumstances of our daily living. (Luis Rodriguez, S.J.-Creighton University Spirituality Ministry is quoted today at GodGossip web site).

God is offering us signs in the events and circumstances of our daily living. But, as Vatican II challenges us, we need to recognize the signs –signs of the times– that are already there and for this we need a faith vision. Events and circumstances are only data and they are the same for both believers and unbelievers. Faith vision helps us to find in them a faith meaning, which in turn leads us to a faith response to the same data.

Don Schwager quotes a homily on Jesus is Son of God and Son of Mary, by Bede the Venerable, 672-735 A.D.

"We should carefully note the order of the words here, and the more firmly they are engrafted in our heart, the more evident it will be that the sum total of our redemption consists in them. For they proclaim with perfect clarity that the Lord Jesus, that is, our Savior, was both the true Son of God the Father and the true Son of a mother who was a human being. 'Behold,' he says, 'you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son' - acknowledge that this true human being assumed the true substance of flesh from the flesh of the Virgin! 'He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High' - confess too that this same Son is true God of true God,

Friar Jude Winkler provides background on why King Ahaz refuses signs from God. God writes straight with crooked lines is a cliche that Friar Jude applies to the mistranslation of “maiden” in the Greek Scripture.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, associates a God-sized hole waiting to be filled within our being as responsible for an inner restlessness that sends all of us looking for our True Self.

Our task is simply to embody heaven now. We cannot “get there”; we can only “be there”—which ironically is to “be here!” Love, like prayer, is not so much an action that we do, but a reality that we are. We don’t decide to be loving. Love is our True Self. It is where we came from and where we’re going. All spiritual growth is no more than a matter of becoming who we already are.

The manifestation of God's physical presence on earth has been a concern of people since ancient times. Even as we are seeking God in spiritual practices, we are challenged by events that bring us into contact with the Body of Christ in daily life. The surrender of the Virgin in Bethlehem to the Will of God and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit has Incarnated the Word in flesh.