Study:  Consider a moment when you were greatly helped by someone.  How did it feel to have their support?

Pray: Set before the Lord your challenges and remember in your daily prayers the needs of others.

Serve: How has the Lord blessed you to help others?  What gifts and talents do you possess that make a difference today?

Mass Readings – 3rd Sunday of Advent

Isaiah’s prophecy proclaims the power and might of God.  Among the words of the 1st reading we find:

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing. (Is. 35:3-6)

These are words of hope!  In the midst of the challenges of life the Lord comes to strengthen our hearts and renew our lives.  Yes, there are difficulties; yet we face them boldly – supported by the grace and power of God.

This hope in God’s power appears in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus cites this passage from Isaiah to the disciples of John the Baptist.  Christ is the one who fulfills the words of the prophet; he is the one who comes to save us.

What’s more, those that receive this saving grace – the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven – are greater than all the prophets, including John.  In other words, when we accept the power and might of God we are transformed into a new creation as the old bondage of sin and death is destroyed.

May we claim this saving grace today!  As we call upon the Lord in our daily prayers, we ask that the power and might of Jesus Christ heals our hearts and strengthens our souls.  We have work to do!  May God’s grace help us to make it happen.