Originally scheduled for Dec. 5

But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law… Galatians 4:4

‘The fullness of time’. This is a phrase that has always resonated with me, like a bell sounding in the vaults of my mind. It ring, and ring, and rings. The fullness of time. Not ours, but God’s. Since the beginning of time the world has waited. The heavens have waited. What must that have been like, to wait for eons? We cannot stand to wait in line for the bank, or in a fast food line even for 2 minutes. But to wait any longer? In the 2nd chapter of his narrative, Luke speaks of two people that waited. One was Simeon. How old he was, we do not know. That he was elderly we suppose, but only because he was told he would not see death until he saw the Christ child. And so he waited. For how long we do not know that either, but it was probably longer than we are used to waiting anyway. But finally, in the fullness of time he was directed by the Spirit to go to the temple, and there he was able to greet and bless both Mary and the Christ. Anna was the second. We know about how old she was, as scripture tells us she had been married for 7 years, and a widow for 84. She was in the temple ‘day and night, fasting and praying’. Finally, she was rewarded by being there when the Lord’s Christ was presented, in the fullness of time. So in this holiday season as we rush too and fro and think how little time we have, we need to stop and think of people like Simeon and Anna, waiting patiently for time to be fulfilled and the Christ to be revealed. For tho few of us fast and pray day and night, and we are often so busy we forget, but the truth is we too wait for the fullness of time to once again culminate for the arrival of the Christ.

‘At that time of year 

peace is proclaimed to the world

By the birth of a child’

-U to vrijeme godista, 12th C. Traditional Croatian carol