Have you ever had to endure a painful separation?  Some are only momentary; some seem to go on forever.  Maybe that is why we play peek-a-boo with babies, to get them used to the idea that sooner or later people go away.  It’s hard when children lose their pets or when best friends leave the neighborhood.  Sometimes there are the tragic separations of children and parents, husbands and wives, friends and lovers.  One of the hardest things in the world is to let go of someone you love.  It wouldn’t be so hard, if we didn’t love them in the first place! 

            God is love and so he sent his Son.  Jesus taught us how God would live if He were to become a man.  He taught us that God has a preference for the poor.  He could have been born anywhere and he chose a barn.  He learned the carpenter’s trade to teach us the dignity of human toil.  He spent his life for others so that we could see that life need not be easy to be full.  His people rejected him.  His friends betrayed him.  Finally, he embraced his passion and crucifixion to show that the Father’s plans for us might be terrifying, but His love is greater than sin or death. 

            In the human nature Jesus received from the Blessed Mother he could be present to humanity as God-become-man, but only as God become that one particular man.  He was present for a limited time and very limited number of people.  But God’s love for us in Jesus was not meant to be for just one lifetime or for just some people; it was meant for all humanity.  Today we celebrate the return of Jesus to the Father so that the Holy Spirit might come to the apostles and to us.  By the power of the Holy Spirit Christ now lives, not for us, or around us, but in and through us.  The Word has become flesh and made his dwelling place among us.  He must increase and I must decrease!