Crossing over the bridges on Dublin’s M-50 motorway is an experience. The lines of unceasing metal cars and lorries remind me of the lines of Safari ants in Africa going about their business. It reminds of the queues of bees heading back to their own particular hives.
Drivers are about their business too!! Are they any different to the ants and bees? Well one sentence in Genesis (1:27) is remarkable. “God created human beings making them like himself, male and female he created them”.
According to this verse we are different, and, one might add, special. “What are human beings that you should keep them in mind, yet you have made them little less than gods, with glory and honour you crowned them” (Ps 8).
We feel it would be a humiliation if we were to become ants or bees. Now let us add to our sense of wonder that God became one like us, lived amongst us and took part in our daily lifestyle for 33 years. And all because He loves what He has made and individually. That is what He told us in so many ways during His lifetime.
I always love the story of the first miracle at Cana, the changing of water into wine. It was worked to save the wedding couple embarrassment; it was a sign of great sensitivity and was worked at the gentle invitation of Jesus’ mother: “They have no Wine”.
As God bowed down to become like us and live amongst us, we Spiritans are asked – especially in the spirit of our founders, Des Places and Libermann – to bow low and serve the poor and abandoned. John the Baptist, mentioned in our Gospel, had this manner of being, this manner of handing over: “He (Jesus) must increase and I must decrease…I am not worthy to even undo his sandals” (John 3:30).
Praise now to volunteers who all over the country will bow and bend their backs to bring Happy Christmas Cribs and Trees, Happy-filled Hampers, Happy and Warm Shelters to people who are homeless and some form of Happy Relief to those in pain or discouragement.
“He has sent me to bring Good News to the poor, to bind up hearts that are broken” (Second Reading; Isaiah 61 v1-2).
To sum up…Let the Wonder of God becoming man turn to JOY as we reflect that we are all made in the “image of God” and that God cares and knows us. As St. Paul says in our second reading, “God has called you and He will not fail you”.
As the hymn says: “The Lord who left the heavens, our life and peace to bring, to dwell in lowliness with men, Their pattern and their King.”
Des Arigho C.S.Sp
