Liturgy 058: A Savior Who Cannot be Used

🕊️ A Prayer and a Blessing to Know the Mystery of Baby Jesus

☕️ Lectio Divina

She will bear a son,
and you shall call his name Jesus,
for he will save his people
from their sins.

— Matthew 1:21

When we are no longer able to change a situation
we are challenged to change ourselves

— Viktor Frankl

🪴 Prayer

For all your people’s cries for help
You come as a helpless child

For all the injustice in Caesar’s Rome
You enter peasant life with your mother Mary

Are you not going to save us
from our sins?

We wanted you to help the poor
We didn’t ask you to join them

We wanted you to be a good liberal politician
Not the kind of person they take pity on

Are you not going to save us
from our sins?

Oh God
My God

We need you
But instead we seek to use you

Come quiet my soul this Advent
May I not be like the busy bodies in Jerusalem
Who missed what those Pagan astrologers saw

You are but a few miles away

Oh that I would bring my gold and frankincense
Instead of waiting for you to worship me

I want to know the joy of the Magi
at the sight of a savior
who cannot be used

🕊️ Blessing

Dear Friend

May you enter this year’s Advent with an insatiable longing to know a Savior beyond your imagining of a successful life. May you come to know the God who takes up residence in the unseen Bethlehem of our hearts. When all the noise of your devices and employers fade, may you find God-Within-You already dwelling in the mess we’ve made. You are beloved.

In the Name of the One Whose Love Knows No Bounds

Amen