Weekly Meditations

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.     Mat. 10:29

When my son was two years old we used to play a game of trust where he would jump into my arms from the roof of our Volkswagen van.  I was the one who called it a game of trust.  He simply called it fun.  I would lift him onto the roof of our van, stand back a few feet, and then invite him to jump off.  Without a moment’s hesitation he would leap into my arms.  I would then take another step back from the van and call him to jump again.  And once more he would fly off the roof into my arms, laughing all the way. I remember doing this after church one Sunday and having a little crowd gather around to watch.  It was quite a spectacle to see.

But I will always remember the last time we played this game together.  As we had done so many times before I put my son on the roof and waited for him to jump to me.  And then I saw it in his face.  Whatever thought entered his mind, I knew that it had introduced him to the notion of fear.  For the first time in his short life, he had entertained the possibility that I might not actually catch him.  I could see the struggle between faith and doubt so evident in his hesitation.  It paralyzed him until I went over and helped him down from the roof.  And that was the last time we ever played this game together.

It was inevitable that this moment would one day arrive but I wonder if God too has such memories of times when we have chosen fear over faith.  Does the Lord remember the first time He saw us hedging our bets, or setting up a back-up plan just in case He didn’t come through for us?  What does God see on our face whenever we entertain the possibility that He might not actually catch us?  And what would it take for us to return to that child-like trust where, without hesitation, we would gladly jump into God’s arms?  As you anticipate the coming year, how might this apply to something that God is inviting you to trust Him with?

There is no more direct way of honouring another person than by expressing our trust in them.  We withhold trust when we are uncertain about a person’s motives or competence.  We hesitate to rely on someone if we’re not sure they can be counted on to deliver or to succeed in a task.  We lack confidence in someone if we doubt that their word or promises are really worth anything.  And we are naturally more cautious if we suspect a person’s intentions might not be in our favour.

To exercise trust in God then is to express faith that God’s character is good, that He is up for the task, and that we expect Him to be faithful to His word.  It also honours God that we are at peace in the certainty that He has our best interests in mind.  Trusting God then is the most direct means we have of honouring the trustworthiness of His character.  In the coming year, the many ways by which we express such confidence in God’s faithfulness will surely be what most touches our Father’s heart.

“Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”                                            Luke 1:15

In the midst of all the wonderful bustle we enjoy each year at Christmas we do well to celebrate the peace and stillness for which this holiday is also associated. We need only bask in the gentle strains of “Silent Night” to once again sense the invitation of the Holy Spirit to come and linger, if only for a few minutes, near the sovereign calm that we imagine at Jesus’ birth.

Take opportunity during the holidays, often if you can, to create times of solitude where this calm can impress itself on your heart.  In the ancient discipline of recollection, let your prayerful meditations deeply and more truthfully shape your experience of Christmas.  Perhaps the Ignatian form of using the imagination to contemplate the Gospels might be a helpful aid in allowing the spirit of Jesus’ calming presence to enter in. *

Imagine the manger scene.  Picture yourself there.  Even if it’s only an image you are remembering from an old Christmas card, it doesn’t matter.  See yourself as part of the unfolding scene as you linger in the presence of the infant Jesus.  Allow the Holy Spirit to direct you in your imagination.  Your five senses can also help situate you in the scene.  Consider the physical environment your imagination has led you to.  What is the temperature?  Is the air cool or is it warm?  What sounds do you hear around you as you stop to listen?  Are people talking or shuffling about?  Are there animals there?  Can you hear reveling from the nearby inn?  What smells do you notice?  Your own clothes?  The shepherds standing next to you?  Can you feel the straw beneath your feet?  Or the night breeze blowing through the open manger?

How does it all look to you?  What do you see as you picture this scene?  Where are people situated?  Where is the light coming from?  What about the shadows?  Where do they fall?  And where are you situated in the picture?  Are you part of the scene?  Are others aware of your presence?  Do you interact with them in any away?  Let yourself be surprised by what unfolds.  How do you feel about being there?

Now picture the baby in whose presence we gather. Consider how the child tacitly welcomes us.  Without a word spoken, without even a gesture, what is being communicated to all those present?  We gaze at the baby.  We sense the grace and truth that emanates towards us.  It is good to be here.  God is glad as well that you are here to share His gift.  You are in the presence of a timeless truth—the utter simplicity of innocence.  It satisfies your every instinct of how life should be.  And for these few moments, you are receiving the most blessed Christmas gift of all.  There is peace.  Nothing more is needed in life.  All is calm.  All is bright.  Christ, our Saviour, is born.  And, in the deepest recesses of your being, you are receiving your King.

* If this form of using the imagination to contemplate the Gospels is helpful to you, you can find other”Mysteries of the Life of our Lord” from the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, along with further instructions, on this website under “Praying the Gospels” http://imagodeicommunity.ca/category/praying-the-gospels/.  The Christmas passages to meditate on would be from #262-270.

As the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Luke 1:41-44

There is no greater satisfaction for us as Christian than to recognize the hand of God in our lives, or in the lives of those we love.  Like John the Baptist in the womb, our hearts leap with joy at the least hint of recognition of the Lord’s active presence.  It is easy as well to imagine God’s heart filled with a similar satisfaction at His children recognizing the signs of His creativity.

The capacity to detect God’s presence in life is something we learn mostly through prayer.  It is from first-hand experience of God’s movement within us that we then become familiar with the subtlety of His ways in all other areas of life. As the Dominican monk Simon Tugwell notes, “Familiarity with God’s ways enables us more and more to recognize certain patterns, certain coincidences, certain little details as signs of His artistry.”

The Jesuit author William Barry as well affirms the importance of prayer in helping alert us to the movement of God when he writes,

Prayer heightens our awareness, it sharpens our ability to feel the ‘finger of God.’  From such familiarity we are then able to anticipate the subtlety of God in all of life.

At Advent we are called to be especially alert to the coming of Christ, and this can also mean learning to recognize the many different ways that Jesus “comes” to us in our day.  It does seem that the more we gaze at life with the eyes of faith, and the more we anticipate the presence of God in all things, the more evidence of God we will see in our lives.

Advent proclaims our confidence that “God comes!”  Carlo Carretto, a contemporary desert hermit, reflects on the verb tense of this phrase saying,

It is not used in the past tense—God has come, nor in the future tense—God will come, but in the present tense—‘God comes.’ This is a continuous present, an ever-continuous action: it happened, it is happening now and it will happen again. At every moment, ‘God comes.’ It is a theological verb that proclaims one of God’s essential and qualifying features: that He is the “God-who-comes.”

As Christians whose hearts are open to the reality of God, we are now invited to grow in our capacity to recognize and celebrate the many signs of His presence that God has concealed in the very fabric of life.  In Mat. 24:42 Jesus tells us to “keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”  Though this obviously refers to Jesus’ final return, these words also invite us to keep watch every day for the continuous “coming” of Jesus in our lives.

Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

James 5:7-8

Do you wait well, or do you wait poorly? It’s a question that applies to both little things like waiting for a bus, or for your spouse to be ready, as well as to big things like waiting for a promotion, waiting to get married, or waiting for Jesus to return. How well do you wait?  And what does it produce in you when you’re forced to wait much longer than you feel is necessary?

Advent, by definition, is all about waiting—waiting for promises, yet unfulfilled, to be realized.  It’s a time when we are invited to re-establish hope, especially concerning things that we are still waiting for. And, as we all know, that’s not an easy thing to do.  To wait is a test of our faith.  The question is not whether we have to wait or not.  It’s more a question of how we wait for the things we long for.  Do we wait anxiously, or in the security of faith?

Scripture is full of stories of people dealing poorly with their unfulfilled needs.  The prodigal son is perhaps the best known example of someone who is impatient with the slow progress of their lives.  We know what we need.  God is taking too long.  We find ourselves becoming restless, or tempted with despair.  And after a short period of waiting we give up on the hope of God’s initiative and resort instead to our own agenda.  But there’s a whole world of faith that lies just on the other side of giving up.  The person who sets out to “wait on the Lord” must first learn to resist the type of despair that causes us to prematurely give up on hope.

Waiting is related to hope in that it presumes that God is faithful, and that it is worth waiting for what He brings.  Growth in this type of discipline leads to an open-handedness where we no longer cling to our own expectations of what, how or when we will receive whatever God has in store for us.  To practice waiting is to practice spiritual detachment.  Like all forms of detachment, waiting means deferring to God—humbly letting go of control, in this case control of time and outcome.

On the second Sunday of Advent we light the candle of peace.  It is the disposition we are to seek in the midst of all that we know is still lacking in life.  We wait in a posture of faith while honestly accepting the predicament of where we are in our journey.  We are still far from home. Like the Israelites in Babylon, we too are in a place of exile from which we yearn for the courts of the Lord.

Advent is also a time to establish hope with all that still seems to be lacking in our relationship with God.  Jesus has come to us, but not yet fully. We know there is more. We have been promised greater things than we have yet received and, in faith, we await that which is still to come.  In this we identify with the waiting ages before Christ was born.  We enter the condition of those who have not yet received what they long for.  We make their hopes and their aspirations our own as we sing their words, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.”  As to the degree that we do so in a posture of faith, we honour God with our confidence that His promises are not only sure, but they are also well worth waiting for.

In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.

Psalm 5:3

Mary was greatly troubled at his words         Luke 1:29

In the story of the Annunciation, Mary’s faithful reply “Let it be unto me, according to your word,” has long been heralded as the epitome of trusting God.  Without any real understanding of what the Lord is asking of her, Mary nevertheless gives unequivocal consent to God’s action in her life.  But it is good to keep in mind that this wasn’t her first response.  Before she was able to find such faith within herself, Mary, like all of us, first had to work through her initial fears.

Mary was not only troubled by what she didn’t understand, but “greatly troubled” as Luke expresses it.  Her body language, so lyrically expressed in Alessandro Botticelli’s 15th cent. painting, reflects something of the apprehension Mary likely felt.  There was too much coming at her and she wanted nothing more than to stand back from it all, to hold it at bay.

We too can recognize similar times in our lives—times when we can’t control what is about to happen.  We just want everything to stop.  Like a child who is attempting to go down a very high slide for the first time, we brace ourselves against the sides, unsure if we really want to let ourselves go.  Like any of us in such fearful situations, Mary’s first instinct was to put the brakes on life.

Seeing her obvious apprehension, the angel assures Mary, “Do not be afraid,” and then announces that she will soon give birth to a child who will be called the Son of the Most High.  This might not have been the most consoling information to add, but it did allow Mary time to compose herself.

Mary’s next response is familiar to us in how we too deal with our fears—she wants to reason with God.  She asks, “How will this be, since I am a virgin.”  It’s a fair question and one that we could see ourselves asking as well.  “Help me understand so that I can believe.” But unfortunately, faith works the other way around—it is only through believing that we come to understand.  We can learn all we want about the faithfulness of God but it is only by putting that theory to the test that we will ever experience just how faithful God really is.

The angel goes on to shed some more light for Mary.  He speaks to her not only of her own destiny but also that of her cousin Elizabeth who, though barren, has conceived a child.  At this point, Mary is more reconciled to the idea of trusting God.  She has moved from a troubled spirit, to reasoning with God, and finally to a more faith-filled acceptance of God’s word.  “I am the Lord’s servant,” she answers, “Let it be unto me, according to your word.”  In other words, “I accept that You know better than I do what You are asking of me.  And I am prepared to trust Your judgment more than my own fears.”  Isn’t this all God is asking from any of us?

The rest, as they say, is history.  God honours Mary as blessed among women simply because Mary has honoured God with her unequivocal trust.  This, it would seem, is what the Lord looks for in us as well.  And if we don’t get stuck at either the fear or the reasoning stage of things, this is the type of faith that we too can hope to end up with.

Mary’s words “Let it be unto me, according to your word” do express something of a perfect posture of faith.  But let us also remember that even Mary, the mother of Jesus, had to first work through her initial fears before she could get to that place of unequivocally trusting God’s ways with her.