Today's Gospel

Find Favor with God

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where as we journey toward Christmas, we're making our way through the first chapter of Luke's Gospel. And today's reading is 1:26-38. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you." But she was greatly troubled at the saying and considered in her mind what sort of a greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be no end. And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be since I have no husband?" And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman, Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God, nothing will be impossible." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your word." And the angel departed.

What jumps out at you today? We had this reading a couple of weeks back. It's a reading we hear at several times throughout the church's year. And so when we hear these readings, we're familiar with these readings. The idea of finding a word or a phrase or an idea that the Holy Spirit navigates you towards can be very helpful. Otherwise, we've got this whole reading that we're very familiar with, that we've heard many times, and we're hearing it again. What jumped out of me today was the angel said to Mary here, he said, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God." Think about that for a minute. What does it feel like to find favor with God? And what is God calling you to do to be in His favor? And do we want to be outside His favor? I don't think so. But we do find ourselves outside his favor more often than we would like. Why? Lots of reasons, but one of the reasons is we get distracted. We get distracted from what matters most. We stop thinking about living a life within the favor of God. You stop thinking about living a life that is worthy of God's favor.

And so as we go into the world today, it can be overwhelming to go out there and say, "Okay, I've got to live in God's favor every moment of the day." Okay, that's probably going to be a challenge. But we go back to the holy moments concept, the idea that some moments are holy, some moments are unholy, and you get to decide. The idea that, okay, create a holy moment. When we do, we live in the favor of God. Create another holy moment. Create six holy moments. Focus on creating moments, not on, "Oh, what am I going to do to live in the favor of God for the rest of my life?" Because that is overwhelming. When we get overwhelmed, we get paralyzed to a place of inaction, which tends to become discouraging. And we don't want that to happen.

As we go out in the world today, want to live in the favor of God one moment at a time. Have a great day. Remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.