GOD - FULL OF SURPRISE
Dear Parishioners,
Last Sunday in the Homilies I spoke of how the Patriarch said he was surprised at times during his visit to Australia and one time when he was especially surprised when given a stone hand-made bust of himself as a Gift. His Beatitude spoke of how he was scanned by someone using a computer days before without knowing what the purpose. Then there was the surprise.
In his last homily of the visit, His Beatitude spoke of God always wanting to surprise us and that we are called to be open to His surprises by not letting our hearts and faith be like stone, closed and unwilling to be open and grow. I also spoke, in my homilies last Sunday on how Zechariah’s heart and faith were not ready for God’s Surprise to him that he would have a son with his elderly and so-called “barren” wife. Zechariah’s heart and faith seemed to have become closed like a stone without faith and hope and even while in the Temple hearing God’s Word through the Angel.
Preparing for Christmas is preparing to celebrate the greatest surprise of all human history that God became like us in Jesus.
Over the next weeks of the Season of Announcement of the Birth of the Lord leading to Christmas, I will carry through the theme of surprise and share on how we can be ready to experience God’s great divine surprises in our lives.
This Sunday we will hear of God’s surprise for Mary and how she was ready to receive the Gift and mission of being Mother of the Son of God.
God’s surprises are the most needed gifts, they are saving and bring joy for the receiver and others and they are given in God’s time. To be ready for God’s surprise this Christmas lets be ready to commit more to God in time of personal silence and prayer, Mass, and to hold onto hope for God’s surprise answer in His Time.
Also it’s amazing that what we need to receive God’s surprise is also what we need when we experience disappointments from our own unworthiness and sin and what we need to handle disappointments caused by people’s selfishness and events caused by the imperfections of the world in which we live.
At this time God is scanning you for the time to give you the gift of His Son.
