Christianity is Strength
Monday, December 4, 2023
by Fr. David M. Knight

View readings for 1st Monday of Advent: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings
Lectionary no. 175 (Is 2: 1-5; Ps 122: 1-2, 3-4, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Mt 8: 5-11)
Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed…. Matthew 8:6
Once in the Smoky Mountains we saw a car go off the road. Some small trees stopped it, and the driver was unhurt.
But he was paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down. I had to drag him up the steep slope to the road. I could barely do it. His paralysis made him dead weight. I had no idea being unable to move could make such a difference.
Now I appreciate better the spiritual paralysis of cultural conformity. Sometimes we are simply unable to think, choose, or act as free persons. Exhortations can’t move us. We are dead weight.
But Jesus is “able to enable” us. He can give us the power to move.
With “grace”—the gift of sharing in the life of God—we “live and move and have our being” on the level of God (Acts 17:28). By faith (and it is a gift), we can know the Truth. With hope (another gift) we can walk in the Way. Through love (the greatest gift) we can experience Life to the full. Without these, we are paralyzed by cultural inertia until Jesus says, “Rise and walk!”
DAILY PRACTICE: Think of some way you “just couldn’t” go against what everyone else is doing—like talking or dressing differently, starting conversations about God, inviting friends to read the Bible with you, defending unpopular values, praying out loud. Rethink. Rise and walk.
ADVENT PRAYER: “Come and save us, LORD our God.”
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry

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