Beginnings

Were Mary and Joseph ready for their new family? Are we ever really ready for new life? They didn’t know what the future would hold for them, but they accepted God’s coming into their lives in this amazing way.

They did so with trust and commitment and the belief that somehow God’s will would be done through them. All they had to do was give themselves to God’s gift. This openness to God’s presence and direction in their life is the stance all people of faith are called to live.

In some sense, all of creation is God’s gift to us, as we learn in the book of Genesis. But God’s self-gift is the greatest gift of all. Openness to God’s gifts can take many forms: following our vocation in life, deciding how we will give our time, how we spend our money, what causes we get involved with, how we express our gratitude for blessings received, and so forth.

Responding to God’s creativity by engaging in and sharing our own creativity is one way we can participate in God’s life here on earth, one way of responding to the gift that creation is to us. As we enter into this new year, may it be one in which we give ourselves to God’s gift to us with creativity, hope, and trust that God’s gift will bear fruit in us and in our world.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)