The truth is that our communities need us all to contribute; everyone needs to step up. As my Archbishop, Allen Vigneron of Detroit puts it, “There are no bystanders in the Church” — and no consumers.

Trust is something that, if we’re honest, we all desperately need. Not trust that God will answer our prayers the way we think best. Trust that He is good, faithful, and knows what He’s doing, especially when we don’t know what He’s doing. 

A God who many of us don’t even know, whom we had no idea was real, let alone who loves us, is answering the cry of our hearts. He has come among us, hidden in human flesh, to reveal that God is love, that we are not disqualified or discarded because of our brokenness and sins, and to fight against the enemies we could never defeat (Death, Sin and the devil).

The Scriptures that we hear this week and in the days ahead serve as a herald breathlessly shouting with joy that the war has been won!  Our enemy, our only enemy, the devil and his fallen angels, has been defeated.  The One through whom the entire universe was made, who fashioned each of us out of love in His own image and likeness to be loved and to love, has chosen to become man. God has come to fight for us.