Holy Spirit of God, nurture in me the nature and humility of Christ Jesus, to know You and to love You…

Luke 1:26-38
The nature of Christ Jesus is summed up in the name by which he was made known to Mary: Immanuel, God With Us. For nine months the virgin nurtured the nature of Christ Jesus within her.  In utero, Jesus would have known her purity, unbounded and embracing love, and her humility as the very Thoetokos, the Bearer of the God. Clearly Mary unreservedly aligned herself with the holiness of the Holy Spirit of God with all the Light, Love, Life, and even Laughter that the Spirit of God brings to any human being who so embraces the Holy Spirit in heart, mind, soul and strength.  An what of me, and my life? Have I, like Mary, accepted the seed of Grace first given to me in Baptism and nurtured each time I (knowingly) receive Holy Communion? Do I allow the Father to grow up this Grace by His Holy Spirit in me, not merely ‘facing’ the chances and challenges of life, but in all humility and longing looking to my Heavenly Father to guide and direct me, just as Jesus did in his adult life? And what of US, the people of God in these ‘postmodern’ and ‘relativistic’ times? Do we allow the Father to grow up the Grace of God, that is the nature of Christ Jesus, in our places of work, worship and waiting and in our relationships? Will we purify ourselves of all the ‘vanities’ of this world, by using the goods of this world gently, and with humility keep our focus on the riches of the Kingdom of God, like Mary – and Jesus?  As much as we do so, then the Holy Spirit that was nurtured in the humility of the Son of Man, who was the Son of God - born of a country Virgin in a stable in the small town in Bethlehem in an impoverished state under the colonial power of the Roman Empire- that is Christ Jesus – that Spirit will be nurtured in us as well.  Holy Spirit of God, nurture in me the nature and humility of Christ Jesus, to know You and to love You…
 
He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.   (Psalm 91:4)
 
Advent… This means [each of us with our own lives] being a person who enacts freedom, in faith, hope and love, in the final movement of the world and history toward God’s arrival in it.
Karl Rahner, SJ [with short edit by bhi]
 
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