Friday of the Second Week of Advent, Cycle 1
First reading of the day:
Isaiah 48:17-19
Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the LORD, your God, teaching you how to prevail, leading you on the way you should go. If only you would attend to my commandments, your peace would be like a river, your vindication like the waves of the sea, your descendants like the sand, the offspring of your loins like its grains, their name never cut off or blotted out from my presence.
Gospel reading of the day:
Matthew 11:16-19
Jesus said to the crowds: “To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’
The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”
Reflection on the readings: The spiritual life, in a sense, is a process of discernment of God’s will. Today’s readings counsel us to look at how God is leading us on the way we should go. Where do we look for the signs of God’s activities? We tend to think of things as inside of ourselves, like fasting, and outside of ourselves, like sharing in a banquet, but the fact of the matter is that our insides are a part of the whole, and what is inside is continuous with what is outside. What is God saying to us right here, right now? When we hear a flute, do we dance? When we sing a dirge, do we mourn? God is in the midst of each thought, feeling, and social interaction, however it manifests itself. God is present in all the facts of our lives, inside and outside of us: God is shouting at us in the midst of the music of our existence, if only we have ears to attend to what God is saying.
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