Fourth Sunday of Advent
I am the handmaid of the Lord:
let what you have said be done to me.
Alleluia!
Luke 1:38
Because of the tender mercy of our God
by which the daybreak from on high will visit us,
to shine on those who sit in darkness and death's shadow
to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Luke 1:78,79
“What is true of the Advent prayers applies also to Advent in life. Before the curtain rises and the scene is disclosed, stretching into infinity, expectation mounts in a crescendo of excitement. Our confidence is well founded and so is the suspense of waiting because the promise is already fulfilled and its truth demonstrated. Day triumphs and the darkness shrinks back into nothingness-- like the shadows in the wings when the stage is set as a temple of light. On the fourth Sunday in Advent the acute awareness of shrouded mystery is deepening for the final hour of darkness that heralds the dawn.”
Father Alfred Delp The Prison Meditations
When the peace of the Lord comes through me it sparkles my nothingness, my sinfulness, into a field of ice shimmering, blazing. I am waiting. I am spinning my moments into prayers. “Hail Mary full of grace. Blessed art thou among women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.” Saying yes to God without hesitation to restore what Eve undid. How we are descendents of Eve. I am in line with her. Yet, Mother Mary comes to us ready to intercede on our behalf, even Eve is forgiven. O, woman, waiting with child in the harsh desert, in a dark and dangerous night. Love illuminated in the minimal poverty of a stable. What joy. What unspeakable and quiet joy. The Hosts in heaven singing songs we cannot hear but feel, netting the earth and divinity between Blessed Mary’s arms cradling God come into our realm. Embracing both from the beginning; a manger become an altar; an infant a lamb. His incomprehensible grace; God become one of us to restore us to Him. Dominions crouching low and hovering.
We wait now for Your birth in the revolutions of darkness. We wait for Your salvation in the everlasting of Your arms cradling, singing softly our redemption song. Our fallen suffering always the shadows of halos; we are dying and graced with eternal life. In between Your birth and coming again, we wait and prepare the way by breaking open to Your love come through us in our helplessness. I am beneath the rain turning to ice falling, waiting for the morning of You in the deepest night of me.
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