Breathless
December 18, 2024
Fr. John Riccardo
Brothers and sisters: When Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.’“
First he says, “Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in.” These are offered according to the law. Then he says, “Behold, I come to do your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. By this “will,” we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all
(Hebrews 10:5-10).
I used to serve in a parish not far from a beautiful and quaint town. The center of the town was a small park, surrounded on several sides by restaurants, bars and shops. On Saturday mornings a farmer’s market would set up their wares with fresh fruits, vegetables and whatnot. There were always couples walking around, bikers meeting up for a coffee, gatherings of teens and folks sitting on the periphery of the park enjoying the beauty of the place and one another’s company.
Imagine one Saturday that into the park runs a young man shouting breathlessly at the top of his lungs. Excitedly, he’s dashing from group to group, trying to get everyone to gather around him. It’s clear he’s been running for sometime. While the confused crowd gathers around him, he bends over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. As he wipes the sweat from his forehead, he finally manages to stand up. He’s got a smile on his face the likes of which no one has ever seen.
“It’s over!” he says. “It’s over!”
This scene actually happened, not in the town where I served, but in hundreds of small towns in Europe in May, 1945. Carrying the news that the Germans had surrendered, heralds ran into villages, screaming with joy to the men and women whose lives had been turned into a nightmare of death and destruction in World War II. People had become acclimated to oppression, cruelty, sickness, food scarcity, death and despair. But as the young boys came running into the villages with the news there was hope! There was gladness and joy! The war was over, peace had come and everything could be different!
This is the image I’m praying with as we draw closer to Christmas. 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.
God didn’t need to do this. He didn’t owe us anything. We were the ones responsible for all that went wrong. But God is Love. He’s not loving; He is Love. And love acts. It intervenes. It cares. It saves. It rescues. It goes to battle for the beloved. And the beloved is us – you and me by name. This is the gospel.
May our ears be attentive like never before to the mysteries we’re about to celebrate, and may we be not only recipients of this extraordinary, life changing news but herald ourselves of it to a world that is ravaged with anxiety, sadness, and despair
ACTS XXIX Prayer Intentions
December 2024
For our time at the first European SEEK Conference
in Germany at the end of the month as well as for meetings with partners in the UK in early January.For a joyful Advent and Christmas season for our Episcopal Advisory Committee, Board members, benefactors, prayer partners and all those running
The Rescue Project in their parishes, homes and
college campuses.For God’s protection upon Fr. John Riccardo and
the ACTS XXIX family.