To return, however, to the opening verses of the Canto: these are St. Bernard’s prayer to the Blessed Virgin, a beautiful and adoring paean. There is one verse, though, which jars me. In spite of the sublimity of the poetry, I believe Dante is mistaken when he has Bernard say to Mary:

you are the one who so ennobled
human nature that the maker of it
condescended to be made of it.

It was not because Mary was so good that God became human, but because you and I were (and are) in such need — because so often we debase rather than ennoble our human nature. Jesus comes to us out of that “love which moves the sun and the other stars,” a love so encompassing that it freely enfolds us in our sinfulness and our brokenness.

At the end of the Paradiso the poet experiences his own desire and will “turned already, / like a wheel that is moved evenly, / by the love which moves the sun and the other stars.”

In our truest self, each one of us is also moved by this love. Let us pray that through Jesus, God-with-us, our whole being might be in harmony with the divine love.

O loving God,
may I wait in peace for you,
and waiting
enter the place in my heart
where like the sun and the stars
I am moved only by your love,
and there find you
already with me,
waiting for me.

 

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.
(Psalm 130:5-6)

Come to this world so laden with sorrow,
dirtied with greed,
fractured by war and hate,
weighed down with anxiety.

Come to our hearts that sometimes long for you
and sometimes choose lesser things over your love.
Come to your beloved people
who don’t know how to receive you.

Come as you are to me,
into this murky heart that too often desires you
to come as someone you are not,
to your dim child who is not sure
to recognize you in your coming.
Brighten these eyes in your beauty, O Beauty,
and enliven the dullness of this mind, O lovely Truth.

Come, O come, Lord Jesus!

The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. …
The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

(Revelation 22:17, 20)

We might add another to the list this Advent season: a time for exhorting and a time for comforting.

As for the first, we might think of exhorting the troops to action and other urgings to scary or wearisome action. As for comforting — how we do need to be comforted and consoled!

But what if they were related—the comfort and the exhortation?

One of the beautiful Advent readings is taken from Isaiah 40, which begins, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.”

These words are spoken for a people in exile.  But what is this consolation? The exile is nearly over, they (and we) hear.  Your iniquities are pardoned. God is coming and “will feed his flock like a shepherd.”

When we turn to the New Testament, we hear Jesus also assure us of comfort.  In the Gospel of John he says that he will not leave us orphaned, but will send “another Comforter” (often translated “another Advocate”), indicating that although the Comforter to whom his followers are accustomed (that is, Jesus himself) will soon no longer be visibly present, they will continue to have the divine comfort of the Holy Spirit.

The Greek word used for Comforter is Paraklete, Παράκλητος.

But curiously enough the related word that is often used to mean “comfort” or “encouragement” in the New Testament — παράκλησις, paraklesis — can also mean “exhortation.”

Are they both the same? How can this be?

First, we are important enough to God that it matters how we are doing, whether we are heartened or discouraged: hence the encouragement and the comfort.

We are important enough to God that it matters how we live and how we love. Hence the exhortation.

We are important enough — small, weak, sinful creatures that we are — that God is willing to go to the greatest lengths to find us, console us, and exhort us.

God is merciful. When we fail, as we certainly will, God says, “Be consoled, be comforted, I am coming with might; I will gather you like a lamb in my arms and carry you home rejoicing.” (See Isaiah 40 and Luke 15:1-7.)

But comfort is not only for ourselves. So the comfort we receive is to share with others — hence the exhortation both to proclamation and to action. “Comfort my people.” For as we see in 2 Corinthians, the comfort brings with it its own exhortation.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our affliction,
so that we may be able to comfort those
who are in any affliction,
with the comfort with which
we ourselves are comforted by God.
For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings,
so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (RSV)

• that there are about 118,000 vacancies for registered nurses in the United States;
• that the baby of a pregnant woman has died after his mother was kidnapped and set on fire;
• that soldiers in the army of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, had been known to eat the hearts of enemies they had killed;
• that the world food supply is dwindling.

Then I remember that on Christmas we are going to hear that the angels proclaimed, some 2000 years ago: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.” We might well wonder what happened.

Standing boldly against the daily news reports is the testimony of some of our wise Christian thinkers and mystics, for example:

Josef Pieper (a 20th century follower of Saint Thomas Aquinas), writes in Happiness and Contemplation.

How splendid is water, a rose, a tree, an apple, a human face—such exclamations can scarcely be spoken without also giving tongue to an assent and affirmation which extends beyond the object praised and touches upon the origin of the universe. Who among us has not suddenly looked into his child’s face, in the midst of the toils and troubles of everyday life, and at that moment “seen” that everything which is good, is loved and lovable, loved by God! Such certainties all mean, at bottom, one and the same thing: that the world is plumb and sound; that everything comes to its appointed goal; that in spite of all appearances, underlying all things is—peace, salvation, gloria; that nothing and no one is lost; that “God holds in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is.” [Plato, Laws, 715e.]

In the 14th century, Julian of Norwich hears the consoling and mysterious words:

Sin is behovely [fitting, useful], but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

And surpassing all other testimony is that of our own beloved Scriptures:

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me. (Psalm 138:8)

Which is true?

Is the world an irredeemable mess where sin and sorrow are the ultimate truth?

Or is the promise of peace and goodwill on earth true? Can I believe that God will fulfill the divine purpose for me and that everything comes to its appointed goal?

We read in the gospel that the kingdom of God is among us. But we are also told to pray for the coming of the kingdom of God. We know that Jesus is here with us — and yet we still call out, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

The problem is that we live in the mystery of the already and the not yet; and this is so both in our own personal lives and in the world around us.

Nevertheless, I believe that at times God gives us the grace to glimpse the already through the not yet. We may glimpse it in terms of goodness, like the Cenacle co-founder Saint Therese Couderc — or as love, for example, or beauty, or the perfection of all things.

At the heart of things, all is in God’s hand. Christ has not only come but has died and is risen. God is sovereign; goodness triumphs.

Does this mean that we can ignore the evils we see around us? That we can say, for example, that since God is sovereign and goodness is triumphant, we don’t have to do anything about the state of our planet and our society? That we can concern ourselves with satisfying the ego, and let all else go?

Paul also struggled with this question: “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?”

He answers his own question: “By no means!” (Romans 6:1)

God’s plan does triumph, but just as we are called to be participants in the divine life, we also have a role in the divine mission. We pray for our own sinful and divided hearts to be purified. We work to end violence, injustice, poverty, homelessness, and pain. But we do not despair, either because of our own weakness and sinfulness or because of the state of the world, for once again, Jesus has come among us, has died and is risen. God has triumphed — in us as well as in creation as a whole.

We claim as our own the vision of Isaiah, who saw that:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid…
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
(Isaiah 11:6,9)

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
‘See, this is new’?
It has already been,
in the ages before us. (1:9-10)

But in truth, “there is nothing new under the sun” is a very unusual sentiment for the Bible. Some things do go round and round of course: the earth, for example, and with it the seasons. Human nature, too, seems not to change, generation after generation. But the typical biblical view of time and history is that we are going somewhere, not stuck in a never-ending circle. In Isaiah 43 we hear:

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (18-19)

In this light we can think of the liturgical year in another way—as a spiral, or more properly a helix: turning, yes, but moving toward the fulfillment of all things.

So as we begin Advent, we notice that we are not quite in the same place as we were last year at the same time, just as each loop of the helix brings us to a spot which looks similar to the previous loop, but is not in reality the same.

Sometimes, though, it seems easier to go round and round, all the while complaining that there is nothing new under the sun. Because if we accept that something new is beginning, we must also accept that something old is ending. In other words, we must accept the death of something familiar to us. If we hear Jesus saying, “I am coming soon,” or if we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” then we must accept that the life we know, the only life we know, as imperfect as it may be, must come to an end in one way or another. And whether we know it or not, this is happening to us every year, on a grand scale or on a very small one.

Beginnings imply endings, as endings imply beginnings. And beginnings always call for a move into the unknown.

We are not in the same spot as last year. We do carry the blessing of last year with us (even if it felt like anything but a blessing). But we have had to leave last year behind, perhaps with relief, or perhaps with clinched fists. And this year we are closer to glory than we were last year, as each turn of the helix of God’s time brings us nearer to the fulfillment of all things.

Thanksgiving Chapel, Dallas
The Glory Window
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Right after D-Day, our Sister Elizabeth — not yet Sister, but Lieutenant Hillmann — was stationed at a hospital in Bristol. Among her patients was a horribly burned soldier, barely out of childhood when he went off to war. He was burned every place on his body except for his face and the palms of his hands (suggesting that he had covered his face with his hands when the tank burst into flames). Not only that, but his burns were infested with maggots.

He kept getting worse, and he knew he was going to die. One day he asked Lieutenant Hillmann if she would write to his mother when he died.

“Tell her not to worry. It’s all right. I know I’ll be in heaven, because I’ve been a good boy.”

Very much at peace, he died soon after.

As Advent begins, we look not just toward the birth of Christ, but toward the Second Coming of Christ in glory. Jesus tells us that we know neither the day nor the hour, but urges us to be always ready. Perhaps he will return tonight or during lunch tomorrow. On the other hand, perhaps we will meet Christ in glory at the moment of our physical death, when time will be no more and all our words and concepts of God will be revealed in their inadequacy.

The young soldier was ready for glory. But what about those of us whose hearts are less simple — those of us who cannot claim with confidence that we have been “good boys” or “good girls”? Should we fear that day? Should we fear the Second Coming Christ in glory — or, if he seems to tarry, the day of our death?

The gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent has words of encouragement for that time when the cosmic events related to the Second Coming occur:

Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:28)

What are we to do besides standing up and raising our heads? After all, we do not have the purest of hearts. Our thoughts and actions are far from blameless.

First, we can throw ourselves on the mercy of God.
Jesus manifested this mercy in his earthly life; he showed us the same abundant mercy in his resurrection appearances; and we can be sure that in spite of whatever unsettling events may come to pass, his Second Coming will be charged with the power and tenderness of God’s mercy.

Second, we can offer for ourselves and for others the prayer of the second reading from the first Sunday of Advent:

May the Lord make you increase
and abound in love
for one another and for all,…
so as to strengthen your hearts,
to be blameless in holiness
before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus
with all his holy ones. Amen.
(1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 NAB)

And we can view the moment of his coming with joyful anticipation, for — wonder beyond all wonders — the highest ambition of the Christian life will be fulfilled: we shall be like Jesus; and this means that we shall be like God.

We recall that the snake in Genesis promised Eve that she and Adam would be like God if they ate the forbidden fruit. The serpent, however, had no authority to make that promise. He couldn’t deliver.

But God does have the authority to make the promise. This time, the desire to become like God is no longer a power grab, but a holy longing. It is the desire to be who we are created to be.

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
(1 John 3:2)

The dying soldier was blessed with a childlike and trusting spirit. But we too, whether trusting or doubting, steadfast or faltering, are God’s children, even now. And so we pray with assurance, Come, Lord Jesus!

The other night, in Atlanta, I attended a magnificent performance of “The Play of Herod,” a 12th century music drama. A friend, Butch Spivey, sang the title role. In “The Play of Herod” we saw acted-out and heard sung in medieval plainsong and polyphony the story of Christmas, Epiphany, and the slaughter of the innocents. Afterwards, we drank mulled cider and sang Christmas carols in front of a blazing fire.

The next morning I walked down a steep hill to church for Sunday Mass, where I returned to Advent anticipation. We sang “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”; the third candle of the Advent wreath was lit; and we listened to one of the beautiful seasonal readings from the prophet Isaiah. The church was draped in purple.

Perhaps it is fitting to experience Advent as a hodge-podge. Life itself is a hodge-podge, blending waiting and fulfillment, joy and sorrow, birth and death. We cannot choose simply to engage in the pursuit of happiness, which the Declaration of Independence tells us is our alienable right, for unalloyed happiness not only escapes us, but, I tend to believe, is overrated as a goal. In the “Play of Herod,” when the Magi present their gifts to the newborn Christ, they sing (more or less translated from the Latin):

Accept gold, sign of a King…
Incense, for you are truly God…
Myrrh, sign of the tomb.

We read in the gospel of John that myrrh was used, after the crucifixion, to prepare Jesus’ body for burial (John 19:39-40). Thus nativity — the birth of a king, the incarnation of Emmanuel, God-with-us — already brings us into contact with Good Friday. And of course the resurrection is already implicit in the cross.

So in Advent, a season that can be as mixed-up as life itself, we wait in hope, knowing that Jesus has already come – and will come again. We gaze toward the star that lightens our path, even as we often grope in the dark.

We kneel before both the manger and the cross.

We weep for the mothers of children killed by a ruler to protect his own reign; but we rejoice in the conviction that evil and death have already been defeated.

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing…

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.”

(Isaiah 35:1-2a;3-4a)

However, Christians believe that the Messiah has already come. So why are we still waiting? And for what — or whom — are we waiting?

I am sometimes struck by how little time most of us Catholics spend pondering the Second Coming of Christ. This is puzzling, because we proclaim it every time we go to Mass. For example, here are three of the Memorial Acclamations:

• “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”
• “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory.”
• “Dying, you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory.”

But more important than saying these words is the very action of receiving communion: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,” says Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:26, “you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Our own call is to share in the mystery of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection – and expected return.

When should we expect the Second Coming?

A Talmudic story goes something like this: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi meets the prophet Elijah and asks him, “When is Messiah coming?”

“Go ask him,” says Elijah.

“But where will I find him, and how will I recognize him?” asks the good rabbi.

“He is sitting among the beggars,” answers Elijah.

Like the beggars, the Messiah also is covered with sores, but there is a difference, Elijah points out. When the others unbind their wounds, they unwrap them all at once, then bind them all up again. But the Messiah, instead of unwrapping all his wounds at once, unbinds just one at a time and then bandages that one up again right away. That is so he will be ready to make his appearance without delay, whenever he is called.

So Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi finds the Messiah and asks him, “Master, when are you coming?”

“Today,” he replies.

Rabbi Yehoshua returns saddened to Elijah and tells him that the Messiah has lied to him.

“He said he was coming today — and he hasn’t come.”

But Elijah explains that he has misunderstood. The Messiah was referring to Psalm 95: “O that today you would listen to his voice.”

We too must listen for Christ and look for Christ today, at this very moment. Not that there is any use trying to figure out the date of his Second Coming, for “about that day and hour,” he has told us, “no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father….Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:36,42).

Perhaps he will come in glory within the next hour. On the other hand, perhaps he is calling us very quietly to let him come more fully into our hearts and into the daily events of our lives. If we are not paying attention, we may miss that silent coming.

Where should we look for his coming? Everywhere!

So, if they say to you, “Look! He is in the wilderness,” do not go out. If they say, “Look! He is in the inner rooms,” do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
(Matthew 24:26-27)

It seems that the Second Coming will be as obvious as lightning illuminating the whole
sky and the land beneath — and very unlike that obscure birth in a stable in Bethlehem. Nevertheless, I imagine that all our expectations will be surpassed.

In the meantime, we must be attentive and look for Christ where we may least expect him. He may be found, as he was for Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, among the beggars. He may make himself known to us today through a neighbor or a family member or someone whose beliefs are different from ours. He may come to us in an apparently insignificant event. Although the light of Christ already fills the earth, receiving him often requires being open to the surprises of the divine presence.

As we pray to be alert to the glorious appearing of Christ in the fullness of time, we ask also to be mindful of the holy Light that spreads over the most humble events of our lives, from east to west, from dawn to dusk, and through the night.

O that this very day we might listen to his voice. Come, Lord Jesus!

All-powerful God,
increase our strength of will for doing good
that Christ may find an eager welcome
at his coming
and call us to his side in the kingdom of heaven,
where he lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

Opening Prayer for the First Sunday of Advent
(The Roman Missal, Copyright © 1973, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc.)

(Lightning image courtesy of Microsoft)

What is history? Wars, victories, and wars. . . So many fears . . . The world is drenched in blood, and the guilt is endless. . . This is what the prophets discovered. History is a nightmare. There are more scandals, more acts of corruption, than are dreamed of in philosophy.

But this nightmare is not the final word. Heschel goes on to say:

It would be blasphemous to believe that what we witness is the end of God’s creation. It is an act of evil to accept the state of evil as either inevitable or final. Others may be satisfied with improvement, the prophets insist upon redemption. The way [humanity] acts is a disgrace, and it must not go on forever.

Evil and violence are not God’s purpose for creation. Not only does God want something better for us, but something better is on the way. Listen to the prophet Isaiah:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
One nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again. (Isaiah 2:4)

And this:

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
. . . . . . . . . .
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full
of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
(Isaiah 11:6,9)

Is this just a fairy tale? A daydream? No, we are reminded during the first weeks of Advent that the old order will come to an end — indeed is already on its way out. But we are not to wait passively for peace to reign. We are called to live in justice and mercy, and to wait with hope for the fulfillment of all things in Christ. In fact, by living in peace, justice, hope, and love, we are anticipating even now the age to come — and with Christ we bring comfort to a fearful world.

What is so mysterious is that the monarch butterflies fly each year to a place they have never seen. There seems to be implanted in them the need and the desire for this location and these particular trees, as well as the instinct for arriving there. In fact, the previous ones to winter in those trees are long dead — it is several generations of their grandchildren who make the next trip.

We also have a desire implanted in us — the desire for God. Ordinarily what we long for is something we don’t already have, and it can seem this way with God, too: that we long for God because God is not there.But strangely enough, longing for God is a sign of the divine presence. God is there in our longing. We wouldn’t be longing at all, if God weren’t already present, touching us and implanting in our hearts the desire for the divine. The longing itself draws us toward the one who is truly already with us.

Therefore we can pray, “Come, Lord Jesus!” in confidence and peace, because Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” is present to us and in us as we call to him.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
(Psalm 130:5-7)