The Great Gift of Peace

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Let not your heart be disturbed.

~Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego

These earliest days of December can be such a manic time.  We’ve finished with the great ordeal of Thanksgiving and have begun to shop for Christmas. The lists seem so long, the money only stretches so far, and the expectations seem so outsized. There are decorations to put up and parties to host or attend, and it all seems like so much. 

At the same time, we have entered into Advent, a season that entices us toward quietness and reflection as we long, like a pregnant woman, for deliverance of our heavy burdens.  “He shall be peace,” says the prophet Micah, and we “wait in joyful hope” for the coming of something so extraordinary that it makes our efforts seem shortsighted and small: the great gift, peace beyond all understanding. 

Peace—real peace—is the forever plea from a people in wounded exile, forever looking outside of itself for that gift. But what if the process of peace depends in part on our ability to recognize it? A gift that cannot be recognized as such can often seem disguised as heavy load.

A willingness to remain undisturbed, trusting in Christ, is a necessary component of peace. It is a great gift.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, in this hope and expectation, help us to be open to the gifted grace of trust that we might begin to know peace and thus begin to better know Jesus.

To Ponder: Take a stroll through your everyday surroundings and see them through the eyes of someone as destitute as Saint Juan Diego before Mary spoke to him. Identify all of the gifts around you. Say thank you. Peace begins right there.
~ Elizabeth Scalia

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