As we approach, Christmas, it may be time for us to look at an important principle that defines this Fourth Sunday of Advent. Today, we see the passage where the Archangel Gabriel invites Mary to be the Mother of the Savior. Many at this point ask the question, what if Mary said “No”. I will give you another question instead. What if God never sent the Angel Gabriel?

The reason why this is so important is because, we need to remember an important message in our Catholic faith: God always is the initiator. It is God who creates, it is God who begins the history of salvation after the fall. It is God who sends His prophets and God who sends the Angel Gabriel to be followed by His own Son. So when we ask the question what if God did not send the Angel Gabriel, it is an important question. For the real issue is what if God did not initiate. Yet, the other side of this issue is that God did initiate, therefore, it is a mute point, as mute as asking what if Mary said “no”.

However, what is the point here is that we as Catholics can easily lose a sense that all comes from God first and, therefore, our salvation does not rely on our efforts but on our response to God’s initiation; for it is God who initiates. Therefore, as the Bible teaches, what do we have to fear. Because God will do everything He can to bring us to salvation. We need to respond and participate.

We are engaged in a season of hope. That hope comes from God’s initiation upon us. It is a time to realize that the Father in fact sent His only Son to be one like us, because He loved us so much. This was that we could be saved.

When we look at that reality, we can begin to realize that if God did so much that we could be saved, then we have to understand, this great lover to us is behind the move to bring us to salvation.  If you co-operate with His grace, how could you possibly go wrong. The answer is simple, you can’t.

It is when we decide to turn from the source of salvation that we get into trouble. However, even then we have an avenue back, which the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Therefore, when we open ourselves to the grace of God, then we can be aware that His grace is working in our lives and trust in that, as you trust in the fact that oxygen is alive in your veins.

When we see that Jesus came so that we could be saved, we have to wonder what God would not do to bring us salvation and the answer is simple, He will not allow us to be saved if it is our choice not to be saved. Aside from that when we choose salvation by seeking to live the gospel of Christ, by seeking to participate in the life of the Church which is His gift to us, when we receive his Son at the Eucharist we can are participating in God’s action that we may be saved. We participate in his creative love for us that we may be fully human and fully alive. That is always a time to celebrate.

Remember, God so loved us that through His Church, He gave us the sacraments as manifestations of His grace in our lives. Each of the sacraments come to key points in our lives as signs of God’s presence in leading us to salvation. The most powerful one, in my mind, is the sacrament of the sick. When we are at our weakest, God is there calling us further to trust in his initiating action.

However, we have a call as well to invite others to know this saving action, to become agents of God’s initiation.

There are many outside who have no understanding about this, they believe they are outside of God’s salvation forgetting that God initiates His salvation that all who choose to respond receive it. Let us participate in this action.

If you find yourself or others forgetting what this season is all about, God’s love that we may be saved, remember this. It is God who initiates, we respond. This is the formula to our salvation.

God is love, He sent his only son that we might experience this love, and come to know salvation. He initiated His grace in our lives. Respond with your yes to God everyday and know that He is doing all He can to ensure your salvation. You need only co-operate and act on that grace in service to God to experience the salvation to which we are called.

God Bless You,

Fr. Robert J Carr

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