The Sixth Day of the O Antiphons: O Come, Desire of Nations, Come

O come, Desire of nations, come

Bind in one the hearts of all mankind,

Bid thou our sad divisions cease,

And be thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice!  Rejoice!

Emmaneul shall come to thee, O Israel!

Syria.  Sudan.  Christmas Market in Berlin, Germany.  Bombing during worship at St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt.

Each day of this final week of Advent, a tragedy has lit up the news.  It seems particularly fitting that today we pray as we sing:

Please, please God:  Come as King of Peace,
Please, please God:  End our sad divisions, 
Please, please God:  Bind us into one heart.

If we believe that all of this is God's will, and I do, why doesn't God say yes?  The truth is perhaps that it's not that God isn't saying yes, but that we say no. 

I've been thinking and praying about how to respond in a meaningful way to each of the many ways that we say no to God's perfect will.  The past two days I've heard the same answer through conversations with women whom I respect greatly, and so today I share it with you.

If we do indeed believe that God is ultimately Love--fully, completely, perfectly, then it seems that every time we share God's love with others that we become part of God's yes.  If my small, though not truly small, act of love, incarnates God's love, and then that love incarnates another act of love in someone else, and then another, and then another.........would the impossible become possible, one act of love at a time?

Could my sharing of love through some act with a person in Spring, Texas, actually travel eventually to acts of love in Aleppo and Cairo and Berlin and Moscow and Tehran?  When I recall that the love I share found it's way to me by a 2000 year journey from Bethlehem in Palestine, I know that the impossible is possible with God.

How will God come to you today?  

Will it be by sharing God's love with someone who may not even know that he or she needs it?