Advent Reflection: Wednesday, December 8

12/08/2021

As Saint Louis University embraces the holiday season, students, faculty and staff members were asked to share reflections on selected readings. Today Matthew Baugh, S.J., Director of the Catholic Studies Center, reflects on Second Reading, Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12.

Reading for Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021 

Second Reading, Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12

Brothers and sisters:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him. 
In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ,
in accord with the favor of his will,
for the praise of the glory of his grace
that he granted us in the beloved.

In him we were also chosen,
destined in accord with the purpose of the One
who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,
so that we might exist for the praise of his glory,
we who first hoped in Christ.

Reflection

Some of the happiest and most vivid memories from my childhood seem to have unfolded in the dark. Riding to Christmas midnight Mass, for example, as the rest of the world slept, my eyes unable to look away from the night sky alive with stars. Or passing from the bright and bustling lobby of the Arkansas Children’s Theater into the hushed and low-lit auditorium inside, where everything from the musicians warming up in the pit to the curtain closed tight on stage created the same powerful impression: something is about to begin! Something amazing.

With the mystery that we celebrate today, the Immaculate Conception, we find ourselves in precisely the same kind of situation, right on the edge of something big. The first word of the play hasn’t even been spoken, and yet it’s all there just waiting to unfold. Even the lead actress has been kept in the dark about her role and blushes when the spotlight falls on her for the first time. But this is just as the master playwright has planned it. For the light shines on her at the opening of the great drama not to draw attention to her central role in the action, but that we might see what God wishes to accomplish through her in us, whom he chose “ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.”

-- Matthew Baugh, S.J., Director of the Catholic Studies Center

Newslink will be running select reflections through Advent. All the reflections can be found on the Mission and Identity Facebook page.