...let the EARTH BE OPENED AND BRING FORTH A SAVIOUR!   INROIT

Do you realize that Jesus was made from dirt?

Did that get your attention?

Yes. Jesus was made from dirt, not star dust, nor some heavenly powder.

From dirt.

So the Introit today proclaims rightly:  "Let the earth be opened and bring forth a Saviour."

Mary prepared the way for her Saviour Son by eating bread made form grain which came from the fertile earth.

She also drank milk from cows who ate grass that came from fertile earth.

Then these nutrients fed the child in her womb.

Jesus is of the earth earthy!

Yet we in our techno culture rarely  touch the earth, and if we do, we must wipe our dirty feet before coming inside.

We seem not to be of the earth-earthy.

Not only that, we disdain the earth by the way we mistreat her.

Pope Francis: Care For The Earth:

"We have come to see ourselves as her Lord and masters, free to plunder her at will..."

"We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth. Our very bodies ae made up of her elements. We breathe her air and we receieve life and refreshment from her waters."

(As did Jesus himself!)

He then quotes Patriarch Bartholomew:

He asks us to "give up consumption with sacrifice, greed  with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing...and gain ascetcism  which entails learning to give, and not simply to give up..."

Pope Francis:

"It is our humble conviction that the Divine and the human meet in the slightest detail, in the seemless garment  of God's Creation, in the last speck of dust on our planet."

(These words are worthy of deep pondering as we make our Advent journey, and especially on this Rejoice Sunday.)

So in tday's Gospel the angel warns Joseph: "Behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel which means God is with us." 

And so we pray: 

"Drop down dew from above, you heavens!

and let the clouds rain down the Just One!"

Let the earth be opened,

and bring forth a Saviour!"

And Hope beacons us.

She is out ahead of us,

never behind.

"Rejoice always.

Again I say Rejoice!"

Something new is about to happen.

Be Comforted!

Be comforted!

Amen