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Ancient storytellers observed that the sun makes a journey every night. To their eyes, the sun slipped out of sight in the western sky and descended into the dark earth or ocean, only to reappear far to the east at dawn. The old ones watched this daytime voyage of light across the sky. They understood that the sun’s light inspired the process of photosynthesis. It warmed the desert and opened the flowers. But at night, when the sun descended into the dark, they understood that even more was taking place. Do we make this same journey? Is that what this is all about?

This is the commitment of being a Christian: following Christ in his incarnation. And if Christ is God in his majesty who becomes a humble man even to dying like a slave on the cross and who lives with the poor, that’s what our Christian faith should be like. A Christian who doesn’t want to live this commitment of solidarity with the poor is not worthy of being called a Christian.

Mary becomes Salvadoran and makes Christ flesh in the history of El Salvador. And Mary takes on your last name and my last name to bring forth the history of your family, of my family, in the eternal life of the Gospel. Mary identifies with each one of us to make Christ live in our individual story.

— from the book Through the Year with Oscar Romero: Daily Meditations

“She was the first flower in Francis’ garden, and she shone like a radiant star.”
—Saint Bonaventure

On Sunday we begin the Advent season, leading us to the birth of Christ. As we walk this journey, we will be joined by Saint Clare, a holy woman with quite her own journey to Christ. It is one that begins with Clare’s decision to leave behind the comforts of her life, descend to the hills below Assisi, and join Saint Francis in living out his mission. For Clare, Christ was her focus and Saint Francis was her guide to him. Her path, though, was definitely her own.

Francis was becoming a happy man, not giddy, but a man whose whole being radiated joy. He had endured hatred and abuse in patience for two years already, and yet his spirit seemed more steadfast with the passing weeks and months and years – and Bernard looked and listened, and then one day he saw. He saw that what was happening to Francis was not madness but a great grace of God—a grace that had begun to draw Bernard himself. He began to see that what was happening was the religious conversion of Francis Bernardone. Bernard remembered the words of the Gospel he’d heard at Mass.