Fourth Sunday of Advent

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Do you remember sitting in the classroom as a kid and the teacher would be looking to call upon a student... I rarely felt prepared and always tried to avoid being called on. Our faith tradition is filled with stories of people being called on, being asked to do things they didn’t feel prepared to undertake. Moses, for example, tried to squeeze out of the terrifying task of confronting Pharaoh with the excuse that he couldn’t speak well enough. Jeremiah, called to be a prophet in a nation gone astray, responded: I don’t know how to speak... I’m too young! An unmarried teen aged Jewish girl, called to bear a child, responded: how can this be? I’m a virgin.

The unexpectedness of the call and the reluctance to embrace it has elicited familiar responses: Who, me? Why me? How can this be? I’m too young -- too old. I have something else to do. God continues to call upon God’s people and that includes you and me -- unprepared though we may be. And, like Mary, Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah and all the others, we may be perplexed, reluctant, resistant to that call. Like those who have gone before us, we may not feel prepared. But we can take heart in Gabriel’s words to Mary: Do not be afraid! We take heart, because along with the call comes the assurance that God is with us -- Emmanuel who we prepare to welcome into our hearts anew this season.

Fr. Mark Reamer, O.F.M., D.Min.

Guardian, St. Bernardine of Siena Friary

Vice President for Mission, Siena College