Week of Hope - Tuesday

Luke 1:56; Luke 2:1-7

"Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months, and then returned to her home.

In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. This first enrollment occurred when Quirinius governed Syria. Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. Since Joseph belonged to David's house and family line, he went up from the city of Nazareth in Galilee to David's city, called Bethlehem, in Judea. He went to be enrolled together with Mary, who was promised to him in marriage and who was pregnant. While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby. She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."

Humble beginnings, difficult births without adequate medical care, unwed mothers, children without health care or enough to eat - these are the norm in our world, not the exception. Others struggle against difficult circumstances - military families facing long separations and uncertain futures, retired and elderly struggling to make ends meet, adult children who are forced by economics to move in with their parents or who must take in family members. What does the good news of Advent have to offer these?

With whom do you identify in the story -  Mary, a young unmarried woman? Elizabeth, bearing a child late in life? Joseph, facing the judgment of his peers?

What impossible situation are you facing in your life right now?

Who has taught you, by word or example, that nothing is impossible with God.

Prayer for Tuesday, Week One
Watchful God, keep us alert and awake as we wait.  In our everyday, ordinary lives, help us to seek diligently and watch for signs of your coming around us.  Nothing is impossible with you.  May the birth of Christ occur not only in history but in us as well.  Amen.