In Jesus’s consistent teaching and in Mary’s great Magnificat, both say that there are three major obstacles to the coming of the reign of God. I call them the three P’s: power, prestige and possessions. Mary refers to them as “the proud,” “the mighty on thrones” and “the rich.” These, she says, God is “routing,” “pulling down” and “sending away empty.” (This great prayer of Mary was considered so subversive by the Argentine government that they banned it from public recitation at protest marches!) We can easily take nine-tenths of Jesus’s teachings and very clearly align it under one of those three categories: Our attachments to power, prestige and possessions are obstacles to God’s coming. Why could we not see that?
—from the book Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent
by Richard Rohr
