The love is growing...

A few days ago a friend posted an Advent-themed link on Facebook and commented: the love is growing and is coming soon. And in those words I saw something tenderly maternal: I could imagine an expectant mother, her love growing along with the burgeoning new life she was nurturing within her, murmuring these words. Perhaps the mother of Mary said something similar, fondly, blissfully, yet completely unaware of the blessedness she would bring to the world.

And this, I felt sure, is what Mary could have said, with tenderness and awe, in the final weeks of her pregnancy. The Love is growing and is coming soon.

None of us will ever share Mary's privilege of physically bearing and birthing God, Love made flesh, coming to dwell among us. But we can share her call, to allow Love into our world; we can seek to be that Love, to give it flesh and enable it to dwell in and among us. As we continue our Advent journeys, in a world seared through with pain, may we be people in whom Love is growing, and through whom it will come and make its home.