HAVE YOU EVER BOUGHT a new gadget or piece of technology and then struggled to learn how to use it? Perhaps you worked some time at it before giving in and consulting the owner’s manual.  Maybe even after reading it the directions remained elusive.  Why can’t we just sit down with the designer and ask him or her to teach us how to use it.

Today in our first reading God is offering to sit down with us and teach us.  He knows our capabilities and our immense capacities because he created us.  He holds the blueprints for humanity because he is our designer.  He handcrafted all of us and each of us individually.  Additionally his very breath animates us with life.  It is this God that is offering to tutor us, to mentor us.  What an offer!  And he promises to reveal what is for our good.

Amazingly people find God’s teaching restrictive, and instead choose what is ultimately so un-life-giving.  By comparison you CAN take your IPhone into the pool with you when you swim or you CAN use it in the shower, but you CAN’T then expect it to keep working well.  It just wasn’t designed for prolonged exposure to water.  You are free to use it in ways it was never intended for, just don’t turn and blame the designer.

God’s teachings do make sense if you try to see them from His point of view. Talk to the Lord, your redeemer today and ask Him to teach you what is for your good.

Somewhere I read that God teaches us to be thrillionaires. Thrillionaires believe that everyone has gifts to give—talent, time, ideas, money, and more. More importantly, thrillionaires know that the thrill is in the giving, not the gift. When we look at the abundance of creation, our God of fullness must be thrilled. Are you?

If I won a million dollars, I’d be thrilled. I can only imagine God’s capacity to be thrilled.  God must be a God of exuberant joy!

Come to me, God of exuberant joy.

“Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! 

Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low.”    Isaiah 40:3-4

MY PARENTS HAVE LIVED for many years in North Carolina.  It is a constant source of consternation to my father how easily a red hillside of North Carolina clay is removed and used to fill in a gully so that level ground is created.  In a few weeks’ time a hillside and a valley are transformed into a flat piece of ground and on it are a building with a grand opening sign and a parking lot full of new customers.

So, what mountains need to be leveled off in your life so that you can better see where God in leading you?  What valleys, sink holes, or potholes in the road are keeping you down from getting to the Lord?

Identify these obstacles.  Name them.  Claim them!  This will rob them of any power they have over you.  Then ask the Lord to send the Holy Spirit into your life as a road construction crew to do whatever major earthmoving job that needs to be done on your faith highway—so that you can speed your way closer to the Lord.

Come into my life, O Holy Spirit, and take away any obstacle that keeps me from following Christ in my life.  Amen.

Whose feast is it tomorrow, December 6?  Hint:  his name is in an old and familiar Christmas carol!  As children, my sister and I used to put out our shoes on this night, with hopeful anticipation that Jolly Old St. Nick would stop by and leave a toy or treat.  How we loved awakening on the morning of December 6th, running to the door of the bedroom, and checking what might have appeared over night!  Then, I entered the convent and WOW … we celebrated St. Nick in a BIG way in the novitiate!  Such good fun.

This feast reminds me of the call to be childlike.  Think of how children”wait” for Christmas … or any holiday, for that matter … for their birthdays … for school to be out for the summer ….  There is such anticipation.  Such eagerness.  Such expectation.

Advent is like that … a time of expectant waiting with eagerness and joy.  Tonight invites a little fun into this season, a little more expectation and hope.  Put out a shoe.  Share the story of the good St. Nicholas’ generosity.  Play St. Nick.  Know of someone who could use a smile?  a helping hand?  a good meal?  Invite them into your life and share the Advent / St. Nick / Christmas spirit on this holy night.  And then celebrate the jolly Saint’s feast tomorrow.  Let generosity be the gift you share!

What is your name for God? In Advent the readings from Mass and the Hours address God with many names: O Key of David, O Root of Jesse, O Adonai. Throughout Advent I’ll share a few titles that I like, and you can think of your own name for God during your Advent prayer.

Always-giving God – Creation and Incarnation are not two separate events but one process of God’s self-giving. The process began with “Let there be light,” exploded billions of years later when God took flesh in Mary, and will come to its completion at the end of time when all creation is united under Jesus Christ the Head. The goal in our evolving world is to reach a “Christified” universe. What a Christmas that will be when we’re all caught up in God! Come to me, Always-giving God.

Thanksgiving isn’t just a holiday, but a way of life.  There are so many reasons to pause everyday and give thanks for the everyday blessings in our lives.  Have you seen the website Posters for Good?  Here is one from the site to get your litany of gratitude going today.

If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of the world.

If you have money in the bank, your wallet, and some spare change you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of imprisonment or torture, or the horrible pangs of starvation you are luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering.

If you can read this message you are more fortunate than 3 billion people in the world who cannot read it at all.

Contemplation means, among other things, seeing the real. Our founding sister, Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbring, saw the real in the elderly at a time when there were no nursing homes. Some elderly persons who had no family came to live in the convent in Delphos, Ohio, where our foundress lived for five years. One woman was called the “praying mama,” because she prayed loudly all day long, but the sisters knew the praying mama was the presence of Christ as truly as Christ was present in their convent chapel. Contemplation sees such reality.

“If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”  “It’s always something.”  When we hear these expressions, we think of the bad things in life that can pile up: a flat tire, spilled coffee, phone calls and text messages with bad news, loss, a forgotten appointment, a broken foot, disaster.

Charles Dickens led a difficult life, especially in childhood. His childhood experiences became immortalized in novels whose main characters are poor or sickly youth. So I was surprised to read that Charles Dickens said, “There is always something for which to be thankful.”

When things are not going well, I try to make it my practice to say with a prayerful attitude, “Praise and thanks!” Some may consider this a bit foolish; however, when we know that all of life is gift, then everything in life is also gift. Everything can work to our good. So if I spill a box of pins, I have nothing else to do while picking up the pins, so I engage my mind in prayer, saying, “Praise and thanks!” When I’m disappointed or frustrated, those times are also good times to say, “Praise and thanks!”

Today see how often you can say “Praise and thanks!” for everything.

New Mexican image of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Santa Maria de La Paz Catholic Community, Santa Fe, NM

We Sisters usually pray “travel prayers” when we drive.  Decades ago in some affiliation I recall that at the end of our little litany of prayers, a Sister would add the final touch with “Mother Cabrini, bless our machini!!” To which we all dutifully added our resounding “Amen!”

I have a fondness for this Saint whom we celebrate on our Catholic liturgical calendar this day.  Frances Xavier Cabrini had big dreams:  she wanted to be a missionary in China.  Thinking her health was too frail for such adventures, congregations rejected her as a candidate.  Undaunted, Frances decided to found her own congregation.  And the United States became the field where her big dreams were realized as she worked with Italian immigrants in the city slums, founding schools, orphanages, and hospitals.  Today St. Frances Xavier Cabrini has the distinction of being our first American citizen Saint.

A woman with a very big heart, a bold dream, and the enthusiasm to bring the love of God everywhere, Frances Cabrini is an example to us in our own time.  Today right here in the United States members of Congress wrestle with issues of immigration reform … human trafficking rages all around us, often hidden from our eyes and consciousness … young people live without home and hope on our streets here in the richest nation of the world … questions and concerns about health care reform swirl about us.  What would Mother Cabrini have to say about all this here and now?   “We should traverse the whole world to make Jesus Christ known and loved,” she told her daughters. “A God who loves us so much! Can we not love Him with all our souls, no matter what the sacrifice?”  I think Mother Cabrini would urge us to reach out to today’s immigrants … to work together to end the enslavement of peoples on every level … to ask the questions that get at the root of mental illness and homelessness and hopelessness … to find better ways of providing safe and sacred health care.  She respected the dignity of each human person she encountered.  She’d urge us to do the same.

Today let’s remember that St. Frances Xavier Cabrini is one of US.  She’s OUR American Saint, OUR heroine, one gone before us in the faith.  Let’s ask her help as we wrestle with national issues that are so much bigger than ourselves and our own little worlds.  More than “Mother Cabrini, bless our machini,” perhaps we can pray, “St. Frances Cabrini, lover of God’s littlest and least, give us hearts that encircle the world, hearts on fire with hope, hearts that respond to the needs of all who experience poverty today. Like it was for you, may the world be too small a place for all the love we want to bring in the name of Christ.  Amen!”

Last week Monday I went to my mailbox after arriving home from work.  Lo and behold, what do you think awaited me?  My first Christmas card of the season … on November 4!  Then, on Thursday I received TWO more cards!  Amazingly early!  I wonder:  how can people be so “organized” to get all their greetings out that soon?

This morning as I did my morning walk I was showered with snowflakes.  Shivery cold weather has entered the Susquehanna Valley.  Brrrrr …. Christmas cards, snowflakes, darker days:  signs of coming winter.  So soon!

The cards and the snow got me thinking about the Mystery of the Incarnation.  Emmanuel.  God-with-us.  On Saturday night I went to Mass in Robesonia and once again Fr. Mark had a marvelous homily.  As he closed his remarks, he invited us to welcome the darkness of the season.  He suggested that each evening we take up our favorite “brew” … decaf coffee, herbal tea, or “even hot chocolate” (which drew chuckles from the churchgoers) and sit in the dark, in quiet, and “just be thankful.”  Be grateful for the people who crossed your path that day.  Be grateful for food, shelter, clothing.  Be grateful for family.  For a job.  For good health.  For hope.  Be grateful for another day of life.  Be grateful for those who have gone before us in the faith.  “Just be thankful.”

As the cold and darkness settle around me, I give thanks this day.  I’ve been sitting in the dark Sunday and Monday night, drinking my “sleepy time tea” and recalling the blessings of the day.  I invite you to do the same as we head toward Thanksgiving.  Jesus is incarnate once again … God-with-us dwells in you and me.  Where have you seen this Mystery today?  How has Incarnation blessed you?