It is 22nd December 2019. We celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent. The readings are from Isaiah 7:10-14; the second reading is from Romans 1:1-7; the Gospel from Matthew 1:18-24. God wants to live in us and among us while we want to share our life with someone else or something. The birth of Jesus is the proof and assurance to the entire humanity that God is interested to dwell among us. However unprepared and unwilling we might be at this point due to commitments and demands of our life, no one can stop the celebration of birth of Jesus in our hearts, homes and homelands. Many have attempted to commercialize and socialise the birth of Jesus, yet we the believers have a profound meaning that no else could have. A few days left for Christmas. We must not make Christmas a holiday festival rather to grow little deeper in our faith in Jesus. Let us learn to come closer to the person of Jesus. The significance and the impact of celebrating Christmas as a believer needs to have impact on those who are homeless, the needy and the less fortunate than us. The Good News is that we have a Saviour to love us, forgive us and redeem us in the historical and virginal birth of Jesus. Let us not go behind the world and its understanding of Christmas time as holidays. It is not a just a holiday but we are invited to live a life of holiness by the way we interact with one another as Jesus did. We all need the openness of our Beloved Mother Mary and the willingness to listen the voice of the Lord even through an ordinary medium of communication such as dreams. Our faith needs to be strengthened by the nativity of Jesus. Believing deeply in the presence of God in the virginal birth of our Saviour, we need to behave such a way that Jesus is born in our lives. In the first reading, God intervened and ensures His presence amidst insecurity and fear. Even though the king did not take the offer of God, yet God went ahead with the promise that He fulfilled in the Immaculate Conception. “The virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name his Emmanuel.” (Is.7:14). The responsorial Psalm praises, “Let the Lord enter; he is king of glory.” St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that we are called and set apart to be holy and to live in peace and harmony with others. The Gospel imprints in our hearts that magnanimity comes by the magnitude of faith in God. St. Joseph shows that magnanimity towards Mary by his faith. Magnitude of faith was the missing element in king Ahaz and ended believing himself and the neighbours not in the promises of God. Christmas is the only celebration that calls upon each one to be so enormously magnanimous with the others not only in times of doubt and but during the challenging times too. God wants to enter and dwell among us; may we invite Jesus and allow Him to occupy the space that He deserves. May you have a good day. May God bless you.

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