Especially over the past year, so many of us have experienced losses. God doesn’t take away the pain of our losses but helps us to see through it to the future that God has in mind for each one of us, and for all of us.
Like those Apostles and the early Christians, we are responding to new needs in new ways. Christ again tells us to not be afraid, even in the midst of the pains and difficulties of the present moment.
In today’s readings, God speaks to us through the prophet Isaiah and reminds us of how we come to this newness of spirit. It is a Lenten checklist of doing charity and justice – of caring for others.
The presence of the Blessed Mother to Juan Diego echoes her presence in the Scripture readings for today, which remind us of Mary’s role as “first disciple,” always bringing to the Church the Good News of her Son.
We are reminded that Advent and Christmas are first and foremost not about us. This liturgical season is here to remind us that Jesus is asking us to join with him in bringing about God’s Reign of justice and righteousness.
On this Halloween, and as we are about to recall the lives of well-known saints and the souls of recently departed who shined with their “true selves,” let us pray for the ability to take off our spiritual masks, so that we can be the “true self” that God created us to be!
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