Julie Bourbon, Senior Writer for Catholic Charities USA, reflects on the
readings for Tuesday of the First Week of Advent.
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****Tuesday of the First Week of Advent****
Today's Lectionary Readings

After some poor calendaring on my part earlier this year caused me to
miss my Lenten reflection day altogether, I was excited to be given a
second chance, to write for this Advent series. There was hope for me
yet! Until I began writing about the wrong day's readings -
yesterday's, instead of today's. Sigh.

Happily, today's first reading, from Isaiah, includes some of my
favorite Old Testament imagery and puts me in the Advent spirit of
anticipatory waiting, watching, and yes, hoping. What sounds almost like
a pastoral ideal, of lions lying down with lambs (or leopards with kids,
per the lectionary), with a little child to guide them, gives me hope in
a world that is too often devoid of it.

Because in this first week of December, in the year of our Lord 2023,
things are dark. War and suffering threaten to stomp out the sparks of
light and love, and with them hope, as well. Yet Isaiah promises that
with "a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, /A Spirit of counsel
and of strength," the Lord will "judge the poor with justice ...
[and] strike the ruthless." In my times of greatest existential angst
about the world, these words give me comfort, as does the certain
knowledge that the work we do at Catholic Charities on behalf of the
poor matters, and that our efforts to alleviate material poverty often
enrich us spiritually.

This life requires patient, hopeful waiting, and not just during Advent.
Whether anticipating a more just world or the birth of the Christ child,
as we wait it helps to be childlike rather than wise and learned, and to
trust that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not
overcome it. As a dear friend and colleague at CCUSA recently told us,
the Greeks have an expression that translates "Hope dies last." This
year, I hope that a babe in the manger might lead us - and, even more
so, that we might follow.

**Julie Bourbon is Catholic Charities USA's senior writer, which
entails a lot of rewriting and editing. She's been at CCUSA just shy
of two years and, when not at work, watches classic movies, does a lot
of crossword puzzles, and reads much too much of the news of the
world. **

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