20 December 2023 - Wednesday of the 3rd week of Advent - Luke 1:26-38

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”  The Angel Gabriel makes this simple statement to Mary. Mary has found favor with the Lord; what an amazing and wondrous thing. We cannot imagine how Mary felt at the visit from the Angel Gabriel, this holy messenger of God. Mary had just been told that she miraculously will bear a child, a child who is to be the Son of God, the Son of the Most High.  Can we even begin to imagine the fear or shock that Mary’s is feeling at that moment?

Like Mary, we can have fear of the unknown and the unimaginable. Sometimes, God can call us to a place that can scary or disconcerting. It is not only Mary who has the responsibility to carry out God’s will in her life.  All of us have that responsibility as disciples of Christ. We are to take the Good News of Christ we receive in our lives and to apply it to our vocation and with the interactions we have with others.   

Tomorrow we celebrate a Jesuit saint and Doctor of the Church, St Peter Canisius. There is another Jesuit priest who died on this day back in 1837 who was important in the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States in the early 19th century.  Born into a prominent Maryland family in 1756 before the United States became a country, some of his ancestors were among the original founders of the Maryland colony. Studying to be a priest, he was unable to enter the Jesuits when that order was suppressed in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV.  As a newly ordained priest, Neale served under the first US Bishop, John Carroll.  Neale served at newly established Georgetown College in Washington DC and in the Georgetown Chapel, the first establish Catholic Church in Washington. Neale became involved in the Jesuits when that order was restored in the United States. Francis Neale had his world turned upside down when the Jesuit order he was planning was suppressed, yet he still found ways to serve the Catholic Church in the United States in very uncertain times. May all of us be able to live out our faith in the reality of our lives.