4th Sunday in Advent Year A

4th Sunday in Advent – Say Yes to God – Do the next right thing

Choices. Life is filled with choices for us all. So many times, while working in a local primary school, I would hear teachers say to the children, “You have a choice to make. To do the right thing or the wrong thing. Which choice are you going to make ?” This emphasised to them that they were in charge of what they did and in the outcome that resulted: and it worked, consistently, constantly and continuously.

For all of us, our lives are filled with an endless stream of choices. Every day we are faced with hundreds and thousands of them from the moment we decide to get out of bed to the time we go back to it.

But the biggest choice we make each day is, “Will what I do today be in reflection of my love of God and His love for me?”

Our Christmas story is also about choices. God chose Mary to be the mother of His Son. Out of every woman on the planet and throughout time, He chose her. He chose to give her the gift of grace, complete and total grace. This gift made her unique. His choice made her unique but it still left Mary with a choice to make.

Should she choose to accept or to refuse this gift? This was still her decision to make. This was still her choice. She could have chosen to say, No, or to hedge her bets and make a conditional, Yes.

But she didn’t! She chose to say, Yes. His gift to her had made her full of grace and she used that grace to say, Yes, fully, completely, without any question or doubt. She acknowledged her lowliness and that from that moment she would be called blessed because of the choice that God had made for her and the choice that she had made in response. God had asked and she had chosen to say, Yes.

Choices. Our lives are filled with choices. Most of them probably never even cross our minds as choices. They are just things that we do, that we decide, we choose, to do throughout each and every day. And most of them probably have little or no impact on our day, on how we live each day, on the end-result of each day. But there will be a few that do.

There will be those decisions that allow us the opportunity to respond to God’s calling to us to come and do His will. Yes, each day God calls out to us to come and do His will. Each act of kindness, each thought for and of someone else’s needs, each moment when we stop to consider others – these are all opportunities when if we listen carefully, we can hear God asking us to do the right thing.

For those of you who have seen the animated movie, Frozen 2, this will ring a bell, as there is a song toward the end of the film called, “Do the next right thing”. That is what we should all be aiming for each day, the chance to do the next right thing. Because these are those times when God is speaking to us and offering us this choice, this chance, to consider doing what is right or what is not so right. Doing what is good and doing what is not so good. Doing what is other-centred and doing what is self-centred.

Mary said, Yes, to God. She said it with all her heart, all her strength and with all her spirit. She said it without fear or doubt or hesitation. She had been chosen by God and was filled with grace. But so are we!

We are all chosen by God to do His will. We are all chosen by God to be His own. We are all chosen by God to be loved by Him and to be His children. What do we say in response? How do we answer His call to us? How do we show His love for us in our everyday actions, our everyday choices?

By doing the next right thing; and then the one after that and so on.

Say Yes to God and do the next right thing. We all have choices to make. Which are the ones that reflect God’s choice to love us, to pick us, to select us as His family? What can we do in return, each and every day that will show our choice to say Yes?

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit exults in God my Saviour.”

Say Yes to God and do the next right thing.

Bidding Prayers

1.       That we take each and every opportunity to choose to show that God is alive in us in our dealings with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord in your mercy

2.       That we respect the choices other people make in how they live their lives and work with them to grow ever-stronger in our faith, hope and charity. Lord in your mercy

3.       That we encourage our young people to be brave and courageous in their own life-choices, letting them see that being a part of the church-community is a great place to be. Lord in your mercy

4.       That church and world-leaders choose wisely on how they will govern and protect their peoples. Lord in your mercy

5.       That the sick of our parish are comforted by and through our prayers and our loving actions. Lord in your mercy

6.       That those who have died find eternal rest in the Lord and that we  remember with love those whose anniversaries occur at this time. Lord in your mercy

7.       That we ask Our Lady, the Mother of our Saviour and of our Church to join her prayers with ours as we now pray together, Hail Mary, full of grace