Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Third Wednesday of Advent 2021


Micah 4:8-13

8 As for you, watchtower of the flock,

    stronghold of Daughter Zion,

the former dominion will be restored to you;

    kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem.”

9 Why do you now cry aloud—

    have you no king?

Has your ruler perished,

    that pain seizes you like that of a woman in labor?

10 Writhe in agony, Daughter Zion,

    like a woman in labor,

for now you must leave the city

    to camp in the open field.

You will go to Babylon;

    there you will be rescued.

There the Lord will redeem you

    out of the hand of your enemies.

11 But now many nations

    are gathered against you.

They say, “Let her be defiled,

    let our eyes gloat over Zion!”

12 But they do not know

    the thoughts of the Lord;

they do not understand his plan,

    that he has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.

13 “Rise and thresh, Daughter Zion,

    for I will give you horns of iron;

I will give you hooves of bronze,

and you will break to pieces many nations.”

You will devote their ill-gotten gains to the Lord,

    their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.


Luke 7:31-35

31 Jesus went on to say, “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:

“‘We played the pipe for you,

    and you did not dance;

we sang a dirge,

    and you did not cry.’

33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ 35 But wisdom is proved right by all her children.” 


Oil, passing along the banks of Lake Maracaibo, has taken away the colors.  In this Venzuelan garbage dump of sordid streets, dirty air and oily waters, Rafael Vargas lives and paints.

Grass does not grow in Cambinas, dead city, emptied land, nor do fish remain in its waters, nor birds in its air, nor rooster in its dawns; but in Vargas' paintings the world is in fiesta, the earth breathes at the top of its lungs, the greenest of trees burst with fruit and flowers, and prodigious fish, birds, and roosters jostle one another like people.

Vargas hardly knows how to read or write. He does know how to earn a living as a carpenter, and how as a painter to earn the clean light of his days.  His is the revenge, the prophecy of one who paints not the reality he knows but the reality he needs.

--Eduardo Galeano


MAGNIFICAT ANTIPHON: God strengthens our hearts as we await the coming of Jesus.

MAGNIFICAT 

I acclaim the greatness of the Lord,

I delight in God my Savior,

who regarded my humble state.

Truly from this day on

all ages will call me blest.


For God, wonderful in power,

has used that strength for me.

Holy the name of the Lord!

whose mercy embraces the faithful,

one generation to the next,.


The mighty arm of God

scatters the proud in their conceit,

pulls tyrants from their thrones,

and raises up the humble.

The Lord fills the starving

and lets the rich go hungry.


God rescues lowly Israel,

recalling the promise of mercy,

the promise made to our ancestors,

to Abraham's heirs for ever.


Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Our Father...

Great God, the prize towards which we run, focus our eyes on the power of Christ's resurrection.  Let nothing distract us from our goal and expand our hearts by love to hasten towards you.  We ask this in the power of the Spirit.  Amen.

May God bless us, deliver us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life.  Amen.

Let us bless God/and give thanks.

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