Tag: Mary

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Behold Your Mother!

As Jesus died on the Cross, he uttered his final words. In any great story, the last words of the hero are loaded with significance. The dying and rising of Jesus is the greatest story ever told.

On the Cross, Jesus speaks to his mother Mary and to his beloved disciple (John 19:25-29). He tells her, “Behold your son!” He tells him, “Behold your mother!”

Why does Jesus make a point of introducing this relationship? Why does John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, make a point of recording it for all posterity to read?

Jesus is not a procrastinator who suddenly realizes he has not made arrangements for his mother. He is not worried about who will take care of her. He is inviting you and me into a relationship with his mother. He is introducing her as a mother that we all need!

Each one of us is a beloved disciple of Jesus. Each one of us is invited into the new and eternal covenant, sealed with his blood on the Cross. And each one of us needs a heavenly mother.

At the Last Supper, two chapters earlier (John 17), Jesus prays his priestly prayer to his Father. He delights in the intimate relationship he has with his Father. He prays for the disciples he has chosen. He also prays for you and me –for those who one day will believe and become his beloved disciples (John 17:20). He desires and prays that all that is his will be ours. That includes his intimate relationship with his Father. It also includes having his mother as our mother.

This weekend we celebrate another Mother’s Day. As we show honor and delight to our earthly mothers, or give thanks in their memory, we can also ponder Jesus’ invitation from the Cross. He offers us Mary as an icon of motherhood, but also as a real human being (now sharing in his glory in heaven) who is capable of being intimately present as a heavenly mother to each and all of us in the ways we most need.

As children, we all needed tender nurturing, fierce protection, and wise guidance. These needs are hardwired into us in the biological bond between mother and child.

Those needs may shift in adulthood, but they do not go away. In fact, for the last couple of centuries, it is mothers themselves who have been most deprived of those needs! The very genesis of the Mother’s Day holiday is a feeble acknowledgement that we live in a culture that devalues and degrades women while expecting the impossible of them.

Most mothers that I know feel like they are failing most of the time. They continue to struggle with their own ache for nurture, protection, and mentoring, and are somehow supposed to provide those things to each child – AND be a strong and capable worker, AND have the right body shape and allure, AND engage in prayer and self-care, AND…   You get the point. Holding a commercialized holiday in mid-May does not dispense us from the duty of conducting a thorough inspection of the toxic waters we expect mothers to swim in.

Some think it has always been so. I do not agree. Yes, throughout history, women are subject to exploitation by men seeking privilege and power. But it shows up differently in different times and places. What many consider to be “traditional” gender roles are much more modern than they realize! The burden placed upon women in the West in the modern industrial era is uniquely ugly.

If you study the Saints of the Middle Ages, you will find many tender-hearted men and many fierce women. Literacy was not widespread anywhere prior to the printing press, but there were many literate women who became strong leaders. One of the unintended side effects of the Protestant splintering was the abolition of religious life. No more alternative paths for women. Be a wife and mother.

A second major shift happened with the Industrial Revolution. The division into specialized labor led to massive migration, pulled extended families apart, and pushed men who used to work at home or close to home into factories. The nuclear family replaced extended families as the norm, and women were left alone at home – except at wartime, when they were also supposed to provide the needed labor in the workforce. In all these shifts, women were largely abandoned in their God-given task of mothering – without tribe or village supporting them. It is impossible to mother alone! That conviction seems to be what fueled Anna Marie Jarvis in the original observance of this holiday.

Both the culture and our churches tend to perpetuate false and impossible expectations on women. The “perfect family” idealized over the decades in ads or TV shows or church culture does not actually exist! Some glamorize the “good old days” of the mid-20th Century – ignoring the ugly realities of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and objectification. Meanwhile, the ideal woman is supposed to check an impossible list of boxes regarding appearance and performance, while still finding a way to nurture, protect, and guide her kids.

How can mothers give what they have not themselves received? And how do our institutions and structures back up mothers to ensure they can thrive during the critical years of mothering? For multiple generations now, motherhood has been in survival mode. That cycle means that even the best of mothering experiences will leave the children aching for more when they enter adulthood.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 2779) warns us that our notions of fatherhood and motherhood are often wordly, distorted, and toxic. They need to be purified by looking to how Jesus has revealed God’s Fatherhood (and Mary’s motherhood) to us. We have much to reflect on!

In the meantime, each of us needs Mary’s mothering. Each of us has an ongoing ache for the tender nurture and fierce protection that she can provide. Each of us can turn to her as the wisest of mothers.

To be continued…

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Abiding in the Still Point

And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and singing: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests!” (Luke 2:13).

What was it like for those shepherds to hear the song of the heavenly angels in Bethlehem at midnight on that first Christmas?

There are joyful moments or peaceful moments in which time almost loses its relevance. There are moments of stillness, moments of rest, moments in which we feel held by the embrace of eternity.

And then time presses on. The moment passes. The great poet T.S. Eliot reflects on those moments in which “we had the experience but missed the meaning.” It was almost within our reach! We can try to go back to it, try to recreate the moment, but it will never be the same.

I love reading the poetry of T.S. Eliot. Every Good Friday I recite aloud his Four Quartets. Almost every December, I re-read his play Murder in the Cathedral, which tells the tale of Thomas Becket’s martyrdom. At many moments in both works, Eliot ponders these mysteries of time, eternity, human freedom, and redemption.

In both works, Eliot ponders “the still point.”

In Burnt Nornton (the first of his Four Quartets) he speaks of a moment in which all is “reconciled among the stars.” I have little doubt that he is speaking of the Incarnation, and of that Christmas mystery in which the stars themselves paid homage to the newborn King of the Universe.

Eliot puts it this way:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point; there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

Likewise in Murder in the Cathedral, Eliot offers the image of time as a turning wheel. The wheel ever turns. Some of us want to take control of it, but we cannot. In the play, Becket faces four tempters. To the first he flatly says, “Only the fool, fixed in his folly, may think he can turn the wheel on which he turns.”

Are we then helpless victims, whipped around by the wheel of time? Do we just passively accept things as they come? No, freedom is neither seizing control nor passively abdicating. It is something else:

You know and do not know, what it is to act or suffer.
You know and do not know, that acting is suffering
And suffering action. Neither does the actor suffer
Nor the patient act. But both are fixed
In an eternal action, an eternal patience
To which all must consent that it may be willed
And which all must suffer that they may will it,
That the pattern may subsist, that the wheel may turn and still
Be forever still.

These are actually the words of the fourth tempter to Thomas Becket – quoting Becket’s own words and mocking him. He has easily dismissed the other temptations, but this one sickens him – to do the right deed (martyrdom) but for the wrong reason. Finally, he finds freedom in total surrender, abiding in the still point:

I shall no longer act or suffer, to the sword’s end.
Now my good Angel, whom God appoints
To be my guardian, hover over the swords’ points.

Becket discovers the very freedom of Mary’s fiat – “Let it be done to me according to your Word.” In one sense, Mary is incredibly active, asking the angel how this can be and pondering these Christmas mysteries in her heart. In another sense, she is totally passive – totally receptive of God’s Word, so much so that he becomes flesh in her. She adds nothing, subtracts nothing, and alters nothing. Eliot appeals to Mary’s fiat in Dry Salvages, the third of the Four Quartets. It is “the hardly, barely prayable prayer of the one Annunciation.”

I loved merry-go-rounds as a child. I loved having a strong uncle whip us around as fast as he could – even though I knew I would start feeling sick. I curiously moved to the middle of the merry-go round – a much different experience. At the outside, I had to clutch at the rails with all my six-year-old strength. At the center, I could stand unaided – though I still might grow dizzy. Were I somehow smaller, I could truly stand at the still point, noticing the movement without being swept away by it.

It is humility that makes us small enough to stand at the still point. Humility is neither an achievement nor a product of old age. There can be young saints and old fools. T.S. Eliot reminds us:

Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The Father knowns our fear, and he knows our frenzy. We get all spun up, and resist receptivity and rest. We get stuck in the past, trying to recapture a moment that is gone, and missing the moment of the present. Yet always the invitation is there – the invitation of the angel Gabriel at Nazareth, the invitation of the angel to the Shepherds at Bethlehem, and the invitation of our own guardian angel right here and now.

May we echo Mary’s fiat, again and again. We will likely drift from the still point. Then we will feel whipped around by truly challenging times. We may try to take control, pushing Jesus from the center.

The stillness of Christmas night is an invitation into the stillness of God’s eternity. Granted, we are not fully ready for it. The very time that imprisons us is the time in which we will be redeemed. But when we notice we are drifting, we can surrender again and again, until at last we find our true home in the still point of God’s eternal rest.

Merry Christmas!

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Jesus’ Story and Our Story

My original title today was “The Logos and our logos.” No good. The reader would start thinking of the Nike logo or the McDonald’s logo. I could go with the actual Greek alphabet and say “the λόγος and our λόγος” – but that would scare some away.

Logos (λόγος) is the Greek word for “word.” But it can mean so many other things: reason, explanation, discourse, account, sentence, meaning, language, communication, and much more. It’s one of those Bible words that simply can’t be translated without losing much of the meaning (much of the λόγος!).

The beginning of John’s Gospel dramatically presents Jesus as the eternal λόγος, who was with the Father in the beginning, and who is himself God. He is the spoken Word through whom all things came to be. That Word becomes flesh and makes his dwelling among us. That Word gives purpose and meaning to our otherwise meaningless existence. He makes it possible for our life to be worth something, and opens us up to share in his eternal life.

That’s John 1. Today I want to reflect on Hebrews 4:

“Indeed, the Word (λόγος) of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account (λόγος)” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

I had a great “aha!” moment this summer on retreat when I was praying my way through the Letter to the Hebrews. Over the last 12 years, I’ve been slowly soaking in the New Testament on my annual retreats. During each hour of meditation, I read and meditate on the English translation of a chapter or two at a time. Then I go back and look at the Greek.

In this case, I was dumbstruck that this oft-quoted passage begins and ends with the word “word” (λόγος). Jesus is the eternal Word of God, living and effective, penetrating soul and spirit, laying bare our hearts. In his presence, my own λόγος comes to full light. I am part of a story. My human life is a “word” in its own right. My story will be told; my “word” will come to full light – possibly in this life and for sure in the next. Jesus, the eternal λόγος, promises to take all that is buried or hidden and expose it fully (Luke 8:17).

His story is a judgment upon my story and your story – not in the sense that he is eager to dole out condemnation. Quite the opposite! He did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. He does not will the death of the sinner, but that we turn to him and live! But the only way for our guilt and our shame to be healed is for the entirety of our story to be brought into his light. So long as we keep parts of it buried away or hidden, we cannot be a whole person. The conflict that is playing itself out in the drama of your story and my story cannot be resolved until Christ, the great protagonist, is allowed to be present to all of it.

This is why we Catholics put the Paschal Mystery at the center of all things. Every Sunday we gather to remember and participate anew in the saving event that is the suffering, dying, and rising of Jesus. Every year we enter the Paschal Triduum – the holy three days that is one single celebration – to remember THE story – the only story, the one true story, without which our human experience cannot be redeemed or resolved.

Hebrews 4:13 is typically translated in English as us giving an account in the presence of Jesus. Literally in Greek this passage says “All things are naked and uncovered to the eyes of him to whom belongs our λόγος.” The vulnerability of this experience is indeed unsettling. But deep down, don’t we all ache to be known, seen, heard, and truly understood?  Only the eternal λόγος can make that happen – and only by uncovering and laying bare all that is within us!

We belong to him – not in the sense that he owns us, but that we are ordered to him in a relationship – both in creation and in redemption. The original creation happened through him. Through God’s Word all was made. God spoke us humans into being, breathed his Spirit into us, and declared us very good. He gave us stewardship of the entire cosmos. We failed. He never stopped loving us. He promised to send the woman and her offspring to crush the head of the serpent. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word died of the Cross and rose from the dead. The Word promises to take our tangled mess, to expose and uncover all of it – and to heal, restore, and gloriously transform us.

This, I think, is also the meaning behind Simeon’s cryptic words to the Virgin Mary: that a sword will pierce her heart so that the hearts of many may be laid bare (Luke 2:35). She is the New Eve, the promised woman. Her heart is fully pierced, fully vulnerable, and fully exposed – for sure at the Cross on Good Friday – but actually at many moments. Jesus declares “Behold, your mother!” so that each of us can receive her fierce and tender motherly care throughout the rather unsettling process of our own hearts being pierced by the Word, exposed, healed, and transformed. His eternal Love is both fierce and tender, and it is the only way.

Jesus does not expect this transformation to happen all at once. It’s a gradual process that happens over time. Like any great story, ours has moments of triumph, moments of loss and heartache, moments of betrayal, much adversity, and many setbacks. At every chapter, we can remember that THE story has already been told, and the victory has already been won – in the person of the λόγος. His story gets to become our story. Will we, like Mary, say “yes”?

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Fixing vs. Facing

What is your reaction when confronted with human heartache?

Do you feel the urge to fix it? To prescribe the right book, the right prayers, the right slogan, or the right regimen? Or maybe you crack a joke to lighten the mood; maybe you put things in perspective with a comparison: “Well, at least you’re not like ____________________.”

Fixing feels good at the time. We tell ourselves that we are “helping” the other person – but we are probably helping ourselves. We don’t like that feeling of heartache, and we definitely don’t like feeling powerless – so we back away from the abyss by trying to fix it.

When Job’s friends arrived, they found him sitting on a pile of dung, scraping at his scabs with a shard of pottery. They sat with him for a time, but couldn’t abide his heartache for very long. They shifted to analyzing and fixing, and thereby abandoned him in his pain. Indeed, they blamed him for it!

Giving advice is easy – and not nearly so helpful as we like to think. In some cases, it is our way of backing away from solidarity with the suffering person. In others, it is an arrogant way of saying, “If only you were more like me, your problems would go away.”

I have noticed that subtle message in myself and others – both at the individual and the collective level. I think of Casa Hogar Juan Pablo II – an orphanage in Peru founded by Fr. Joe Walijewski, a saintly priest from our diocese. I have been there five times, usually with a group of young people. The thought process at home is almost always the same – Isn’t it great that we are sending down some of our youth to go and help those poor people? We assume that our affluent (and white) American ways are so much better than theirs. We assume that we have the power, wisdom, and resources to solve their problems. If only they were more like us…

Fr. Walijewski actually saw it the other way around, dreaming of a “mission in reverse.” The mission is not our people going down to Peru. Rather, we go to Peru so that the children there can teach us what it means to be human!

And they have taught us – every time. Amidst material poverty, amidst government corruption, amidst heart-wrenching stories of loss or betrayal, we have encountered stunning beauty and joy. It exposes our own deeper poverty – what Mother Teresa called “the poverty of affluence.” Every single trip I have witnessed the shocked realization in our youths’ faces and tears: How can children possessing so little, children who have suffered so much, be so joyful? How can they love so tenderly and so vulnerably? How can we who possess so much be so joyless?

Jesus invites us to be with each other in communion – both in the agonizing sorrows of life and in the intense joys. As Paul puts it, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). That means that the human heart of a saint is never far from tears and never far from laughter. Those who are the most open to tears are also the most capable of joy. That is because, in the Paschal Mystery, Jesus has redeemed human heartache by investing meaning into it. He invites us, not to bypass suffering and the Cross, but to follow him through it to new and abundant life – to follow where the brave shepherd has gone before.

It is only when we face the fuller depths of our humanity – in all its beauty and brokenness – that we can die with Christ and rise with him.  It is in such human encounters that the newness of the Resurrection breaks in. Those who learn to abide in the midst of heartache, staying vulnerable and receptive to God and others, will experience the surprise of the Resurrection and the joy of the Gospel. Jesus assures us that his Father blesses those who are poor, those who grieve and mourn, those who are willing to be vulnerable, those who hunger and thirst. Facing heartache allows us to receive the Father’s blessing. “Fixing” it closes us off and diminishes our receptivity.

Let’s face it – facing heartache is hard! As the great poet T.S. Eliot put it, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.”

I think that is why, when Jesus died on Good Friday, he said “Behold – your mother!” – not just to John, but to every beloved disciple. Mary was often in situations in which she intuitively understood that God was doing amazing things. She did not at all know how it was going to be okay. I am thinking of the Annunciation, Jesus’ birth in a stable, the flight into Egypt, the cryptic words of Simeon in the Temple, the losing and finding of 12-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem, his torture and execution, and the awful watching and waiting on Holy Saturday. Again and again, mother Mary faced heartache. Again and again she waited with expectant hope and was surprised by the marvels of the Kingdom of God.

The last time the Bible tells us about Mary is in Acts 1. Following Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, yet again she abides in uncertainty and messiness. She prays with the apostles every day in the cenacle – nine days in all. It took those apostles many years and many failed attempts, but they learned to abide and receive. The Jewish feast of Pentecost arrives – the day to bring first fruits of the harvest to God. In a stunning and joy-filled reversal, God gives the first fruits to his Church in the person of the Holy Spirit. Mary recedes, and the early Church comes to birth, set on fire with the Holy Spirit.

The Church is intended by God to be a community that faces heartache vulnerably, open to the Father in holy receptivity and open to each other in true communal fellowship. Rather than trying to fix or advise others so that their story can fit into the preconceived mold of our own story, we expect the Holy Spirit to show up. We expect the Father’s blessing. We expect that the new life of Resurrection will surprise us. Fixing is too constrictive to allow space for God to do his work.

Do we have the courage to face our humanity together, and to abide together in Hope?

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Paschal Triduum

We will soon celebrate the Paschal Triduum. We will enter the holiest three days of the year. We will remember the dramatic story in which Jesus redeemed and renewed us.

“Paschal” is another word for Passover. That connection is lost when we use the common English word “Easter.” On Resurrection Sunday, my Spanish-speaking parishioners will say to me, “¡Feliz Pascua!” which literally means “Happy Passover!”

For us Christians, the Passover observance has been forever changed by Jesus. No longer do we spread the blood of a slaughtered lamb on the doorposts and lintels of our homes. Jesus offers himself as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He willingly becomes the lamb, once slain, who now lives, never to die again. His dying and rising are one single offering to the Father. They are now, for us, one single celebration.

In terms of calendar time, the Triduum spans three days, beginning the evening of Holy Thursday and concluding the evening of Resurrection Sunday. However, it remains one single event, a seamless moment in time.

Scripture scholars distinguish chronos and kairos, two Greek words for “time.” Chronological time marches along with steady precision, and with utter disregard for our lived human experience. Sometimes time can’t move quickly enough, as on a Friday afternoon when students and employees stare at the sluggish clock. At other times the hours, weeks, or even years seem to be racing past us. By contrast, there are kairos moments within the passage of time. Whether such a moment lasts a few hours or a few months, we remember it as one significant event or era. The Sacred Triduum is THE kairos event of human history.

For many of the disciples, it was largely a trauma event. They abruptly lost their Lord, and found themselves falling away from him. Within moments, they experienced dread, doubt, confusion, betrayal, loss, guilt, and shame. Trauma has its own sense of timelessness. When we feel powerless, it seems like the anguish will never end.

Jesus transforms our human experience. He willingly enters the depths of human drama and human trauma, conquering every single moment with perfect love.

For some of you, “Triduum” is a new word and a new concept. Others among you have been observing it liturgically for decades. Either way, I invite you to gaze and ponder afresh what transpired during those three days. This three-day event is willed by God to become the very heart of every human story.

DAY ONE

Remember that in Jewish tradition, the new day begins at sunset. Therefore, Day One of the Triduum includes Jesus’ suffering, dying and burial. He initiates this new Passover event by sharing a meal with his disciples. They spend much of the meal debating who among them is the greatest. He declares the bread and wine to be his own flesh and blood and commands them to commemorate this offering. He prays to his Father in the garden. He watches his friends abandon him as he faces arrest, trial, torture, mocking, and crucifixion. His physical torment alone is enough to move human hearts to repentance. But his emotional and spiritual suffering were so much more intense. He willingly takes on our own infirmities, freely entering every traumatizing human experience: abandonment, rejection, the violation of his body, shaming comments, and a felt powerlessness. His cry to his Father gives voice to every human heart that ever has or ever will endure such experiences: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” But unlike each of us, Jesus remains faithful and true. He surrenders in trust; he holds out hope; he loves to the end. Day One concludes with his burial and the sealing of the tomb, just in time for the Sabbath.

DAY TWO

Day Two is so easily forgotten by Christians. Jesus’ body remains in the tomb on a Sabbath Day like no other.

Imagine what Holy Saturday was like for the various followers of Jesus. Many had abandoned him or denied him. Imagine the shame they felt! The gospels don’t specify what Peter and the others were up to on this day, but we know that by Sunday most of them were on voluntary lockdown, cowering in the cenacle.

Most of them had their messianic hopes crushed. Despite Jesus’ miracles, parables, and constant proclamation of the Kingdom of God, each follower continued to clutch a more tangible kind of salvation – deliverance from the Romans or restoring the Kingdom of Israel.

Others, like Mary Magdalene, were actively seeking him, like the beloved in the Song of Songs, going out into the night and earnestly searching after the one her heart loves. Desiring and not possessing is an agony like no other – the agony of Hope.

There is also the Hope of Mary, Jesus’ own mother, who had spent thirty years with him, had stood with him at the foot of the Cross, and had always pondered his words and events in her heart. She knew his promises better than anyone.  As at the Annunciation, as at Bethlehem, as during the flight into Egypt, as when seeking and finding Jesus in the Temple, Mary believed that God was ushering in a new and greater human experience. But she couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like. She persevered in Hope. Scripture doesn’t tell us about what it was like when Mary encountered the Risen Jesus, following the agonizing Hope of Day Two. But we can imagine the surprise and the joy.

In Catholic life, each Saturday is a day of devotional remembrance of Mary. We forget that it is her day because Holy Saturday is the day on which she persevered in Hope.

DAY THREE

Jesus rises on the Third Day, during the night preceding the dawn of Resurrection Sunday. No other human being directly witnesses his Resurrection, but the encounters explode, like kernels of corn beginning to pop – at first one by one, and then rapid fire. In every encounter, the Risen Jesus catches them by surprise, and fills their hearts with unimaginable joy. Their narrow and preconceived ideas about the messiah are shattered against the event of his dying and rising. He helps them to understand how everything in the Law and Prophets – indeed everything about our human story – points to this new Passover. This event of his dying and rising (and the agonizing wait in between) is what gives meaning and purpose to your story and mine.

Even still, you and I have a tendency to bypass the Paschal Mystery. Resurrection sounds nice, but what about fully entering with Jesus into suffering, dying, and an agonizing wait at the tomb? Like the characters in the Bible, we prefer perfectionistic rule-following, secular political solutions, or to the old standbys of pleasure, prestige, and power.

This Holy Week, may we allow our minds and hearts to be reawakened to the Faith, Hope, and Love that the Sacred Triduum offers us.

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Watching and Waiting

Revised from the original posting on Dec 1, 2018

Advent is a season of watching and waiting, a time of abiding in expectant hope, confident in the coming of the King.

Advent is so much more than preparing for Christmas. The early days of Advent focus especially on the second coming of Jesus. Our watching and waiting for his coming is not static or sterile, sitting here idly until some future day when he eventually comes. Rather, theologians speak of an “already but not yet.” Christ has not yet come in glory, but he is already growing and bearing fruit in the lives of his holy ones.

There is a famous Advent homily in which Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) describes a third coming of Jesus, in between his birth at Bethlehem and his coming in glory. No, he is not talking about “the rapture,” but rather the coming of Jesus into the heart of every true believer. As Jesus promised at the Last Supper, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we will come to him” (John 14:23).

This coming into our heart is a dynamic process of nurture and growth. As we abide in expectant hope, our desire for the Lord increases. That desire itself springs from a seed planted by the Lord.  The more we desire his coming, the more our capacity to receive him grows. The greater our capacity, the more we receive. The more we receive, the more deeply we desire. And the cycle of “already but not yet” continues until he comes again.

Think upon the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-23). Christ sows his Word. Some seeds fall on the path, others on rocky ground, others among thorns, and others into good soil. Advent is a time to become good soil, totally receptive, growing in faith and hope.

That is the sad irony of December in the modern world. In the midst of Advent, we are constantly exposed to commercialism and consumerism and unneeded busyness. The self-indulgence of “the season” stands in stark contrast with the penitent cry of John the Baptist to “prepare the way of the Lord!” We can easily heap excessive expectations upon ourselves, thinking of all the things that we “have to get done.” Then we find ourselves too busy or stressed out to do any watching or waiting (except perhaps binge watching Netflix).

With God’s help, we can recognize some of the weeds and thorns in our heart, obstacles that need to be uprooted with firm resolve. We also have hard and dry places in our hearts, tough soil that needs the gentle dew of the Holy Spirit to soften and moisten, freeing us to become receptive, like Mary and Joseph.

Our free cooperation matters much. But in the end, God is the one who provides the growth and the fruit. We are called to abide in love. The watching and waiting is the most challenging part! We are so conditioned to expect instant gratification and easy results.  The parable of the sower reminds us to be patient and receptive.

Henri Nouwen wrote often about our powerlessness, and how challenging it is for us to be humble and patient. We depend totally upon God for the growth – much like the farmer in the field. Nouwen offers the image of an impatient gardener periodically digging up the plant to check on its growth. That tactic definitely doesn’t work! We hate to wait. Our restless hearts resist and sabotage the Father’s rest. All the while he gazes upon us with delight, inviting us to trust that we are his beloved children.

The growth will happen on his timeline, as we learn to abide in him. The fruitfulness will come in due time, so long as there is steady growth. By contrast, we will wither and die if we cut ourselves off from the source of all growth.

Healthy Christian community helps so much. True Christian friends will notice what God is doing in us and encourage us. It is good to notice the growth and to praise him for it. That thankfulness and praise stirs up the desire of our heart all the more. There is no risk of pride when our heart is Christ-centered and full of praise.

Psalm 1 offers an image of the tree that is planted beside the flowing waters, putting out its roots to the stream, staying green amidst the drought, whose leaves never fade, prospering and bearing fruit. Contrast that with the ways of the wicked, who cling to fruitless desires. They are like the chaff that gets blown away.

It is easy – especially at this time of the year – to become anxious or overwhelmed and then flee into one of our “panic rooms” – reaching for our phone, grabbing extra food or drink, plunging into pleasures that don’t actually bring peace.

Instead, we can choose to be patient and gentle with ourselves. It is normal to feel unsettled during changes of seasons and when reconnecting with family. Instead of isolating ourselves, we can choose to stay present to our minds and bodies, present to Christ, and present to those around us. We can receive grace and grow in patience. The fruit will come in due time.

Advent has always been a favorite season of mine. It touches the deepest desires of the human heart. May God give each of us the courage to root out the weeds from our hearts. May he cultivate and soften the hard and unreceptive places. And may he help us to abide in expectant hope, watching and waiting patiently as Christ comes to us, gives us growth, and bears much fruit.

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