Eight days after his birth, Mary presents Jesus in the temple. Our lives take on meaning and purpose only in the measure that we make of them gifts to God. The Mass is the great act by which we, in Christ, present ourselves to the Father.

Jonah hears God's invitation and refuses to cooperate. But God's providence is universal and his demand is absolute. When he has gone through the discipline of the belly of the fish, Jonah is ready. At his word, the entire city of Nineveh repents. When we hear our call to Nineveh, let us not resist!

The young prophet Samuel listens to the Lord's voice, seeks guidance from an elder, and then disposes himself to do what the Lord demands. In this he becomes a model of the disciple: the one who hears and obeys.

At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus, the sinless one, stands shoulder to shoulder with sinners in the muddy waters of the Jordan River. Jesus' whole purpose is to go the lost, the sick, the forgotten, the sinful in order to bring the light of God's love.

The Three Wise Men see the sign, they move, they overcome opposition, and then they give the new-born King the best they have. Having walked this spiritual itinerary, they then "go back by a different route," for no one ever comes to Christ and goes back the same way he came.

The Christmas story is essentially a tale of subversion. Everything the world holds up as beautiful and worthy of attention is undermined: wealth, power, privilege, comfort. The icon of God is not the mighty Caesar Augustus, but the little child of Bethlehem, too weak to hold up his own head. Real power is love: there is the subversive message of Christmas.

The greatest of the Advent figures makes her appearance in the Gospel for today. Mary the mother of God is the new Eve, the one who, through her expectation and obedience, undid the sin of Eve and Adam. They tried to seize God's gifts; Mary accepted them as a grace.

The God who comes to save us is one who rules with a strong arm, who brings a reward and recompense, who gathers and feeds his sheep, who clears a highway before him. All of these rich metaphors and images are from the prophet Isaiah, the greatest of the Old Testament Advent figures.

The French spiritual writer Simone Weil said that the core of the Christian life is waiting, watching, expecting. We cannot save ourselves, but we can look with rapt attention to the one who can. In this sense, we are, permanently, an Advent people.

Our Gospel for today is one of the most devastating texts in the New Testament. Jesus tells us that whenever we neglected to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, welcome the lonely, we failed to care for him. Dorothy Day said that everything a baptized Christian does every day should be related to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.