The great Christmas feast is almost here. As always in Advent, what is promised in the first reading is brought to fulfilment in the Gospel reading. We began Advent with the cry, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’. We will end it with the joyful shout, ‘God is with us!’ In the first reading King David wants to build a house (temple) for God, but God says that, instead, God will build David and his descendants into a great house.

God is not about building temples to himself and it’s not dwelling-places made of wood or stone that God wants. God is about building a dwelling-place in human flesh. God is about building a people among whom and in whom he can live.

In the Gospel, Mary accepts God’s invitation to make herself into a dwelling place for God by receiving Christ and God makes his dwelling-place in her human flesh. Through her God has come to live permanently in humanity.

That is what we, too, are about – making ourselves into a living dwelling place for Christ. The great gift of Jesus to the world is not meant to be frozen in one moment of time. Through us, that Gift is made present in every moment of history so that through us Christ is able to continue to touch, to hold and to heal the world.