Click here for today’s Scripture readings.

Micah 5:1-4a or Romans 8:28-30
Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23 or 1:18-23

Historic revolutions in the past have often begun with noisy uprisings, violent riots complete with lethal weapons, and scores of victims, who were often innocent bystanders.  But the most significant revolution in human history from the vantage point of God’s initiative began with the ordinary cry of a newborn baby girl.

Like parents all over the world, Anne and Joachim experienced that unique bond with the child to whom they had given life.  Steeped in the Jewish piety of their ancestral faith, they chose to name her, Miryam, in memory of the sister of Moses. From her birth, she was knit into the salvation story of God’s revelation which was about to take on a revolutionary shape.

Unlike other earthly revolutions with their legacy of struggle and death, the birth of Mary was a new act of God’s intervention in human history that would bring joy, peace, freedom from the power of sin, and the promise of life everlasting.  But the parents cradling their infant could only know that in the gentle sounds of this child, their own lives were changed forever.  Little did they know how the lives of us all would be changed one day through the child of Mary.

The birth of every child comes through the providence of God. In the earliest days of life, we can hardly know what gift this child in India, Africa, Pakistan, or anywhere else will be for the world.  However, in a spirit of faith, we call down upon each new child the blessing of love and health in this life.  We commit ourselves to do whatever we can to affirm children and hand on to them the heritage of Christian faith along with all the other good things of this world.
The cry of every infant calls us to hear new possibilities of a revolution of grace.

Father Paul Zilonka, C.P. is Director of Formation for the Passionist Community in Chicago, Illinois.

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