20th December

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, dear friends, in these final days before Christmas the Church asks us to slow down and pay attention, because the most important things in our faith happen without noise.

Our first reading is from the prophet Isaiah. The setting matters. Judah is under threat. King Ahaz is anxious, surrounded by enemies, and worried about survival. Isaiah offers him reassurance and even invites him to ask God for a sign. Ahaz refuses. His words sound religious, but his heart is closed. He does not want a sign because a sign would ask something of him. It would require trust. So God gives a sign anyway, not to prove power, but to promise presence. A young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and she shall name him Emmanuel. In Hebrew, names reveal truth. Emmanuel means God is with us. Not God will fix this, not God will remove the danger, but God will be here, inside the fear, inside history, inside human flesh.

The psalm today takes that promise and turns it into a question. If the whole earth belongs to the Lord, who may stand in his holy place? The answer is disarmingly simple. Those with clean hands and pure hearts. In the Jewish tradition, this psalm was sung as the Ark of the Covenant was brought into Jerusalem. The people called out for the gates to lift their heads. Even doors and walls were expected to respond to God’s approach. Holiness was not about separation from the world, but about how one lived within it.

If we pray with these texts slowly, one thing becomes clear. God does not hurry. He does not overpower fear or silence questions. He places a promise before us and waits to see what we will do with it.

That same patience shapes the Gospel from Luke. The angel Gabriel is sent not to a centre of power, but to Nazareth, a small and unremarkable place. Mary is greeted not with commands, but with a truth about herself. She is full of grace. God has already been at work in her long before this moment. She is troubled, not sinful. She asks how, not whether. In Ignatian prayer, we are invited to step into the scene. Imagine the pause in that room. The angel waits. God waits. Salvation history rests on a young woman’s freedom. Let it be done to me according to your word. This is not passive acceptance. It is courageous trust.

These readings speak clearly to our own lives. Many people in Zimbabwe today live with uncertainty that wears the spirit down. The cost of living rises. Jobs are scarce. Young people study hard and still wonder whether there will be work. Families make careful choices about food, school fees, transport, and medicine. Like Ahaz, we are tempted to rely only on what we can control. Like him, we may use sensible language to mask fear. Yet God does not withdraw because of that fear. He comes closer, not with solutions handed down from above, but with presence that asks for a response.

The psalm’s insistence on clean hands and honest hearts has weight here. Integrity matters when systems are strained. Fairness matters when resources are limited. The dignity of each person is not an idea. It is Emmanuel in flesh. To welcome God is to refuse the small corruptions that slowly close the heart. It is to notice who is being left behind and to make room, even when room feels scarce.

Mary shows us what this looks like. She does not understand everything. She does not ask for guarantees. She entrusts herself to a promise. In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius invites us to review our day and notice where God has been present. Advent is like that examen lived over weeks. Where have we sensed invitation? Where have we resisted? Where have we said yes, even quietly?

As Christmas approaches, the Angelus can help us remember what we forget so easily. Three times a day, we recall that the Word became flesh and lived among us. Not above us. Not around us. Among us. When anxiety tightens its grip, when resentment hardens us, when fatigue dulls compassion, the Angelus returns us to Nazareth and to a God who waits for consent, not applause.

The story we are preparing to celebrate does not end with angels and song. It continues in ordinary homes, strained economies, difficult choices, and fragile hope. Emmanuel is already with us. The question Advent keeps asking is how we will receive him now.

As you carry these days into prayer and into life, I invite you to reflect quietly on three questions.

• Where in my life am I being invited to trust God’s presence rather than rely only on my own control?
• Whose dignity is God asking me to protect or honour this week, especially where it costs me time, comfort, or certainty?
• What simple, concrete yes can I offer, like Mary, so that Christ may take flesh again in my world?