Waiting

   

Fourth Sunday Of Advent

 Alleluia! Alleluia!
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 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.

Rejoice!

Third Sunday in Advent

Brothers and sister: Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all.   The Lord is near.  Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 
                                                             Philippians 4:4-7 

                                                  What is stitched in darkness
                                                  and fashioned in the light
                                                  becomes His likeness,
                                                  from one seam of glory
                                                  to another,
                                                  bolt by bolt,
                                                  in His fabric
                                                  and ours in Him.










 

Be Ready

2nd Sunday of Advent

God will very rightly reward you, who are suffering now, with the same peace as he will give us, when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with the angels of his power, when he comes to be glorified among his saints and seen in his glory by all who believe in him.

                                                                   2 Thessalonians 1:6-10

This goes out to all those with loved ones who need turning over to the Lord, whether for healing or for saving or for long suffering. This time of year can be especially frightening and full of pain for many who are struggling with life tragedies or loss or monetary troubles or illness or loneliness.  We know the list.  We know in our bones what life throws at us.  But as believers in Jesus Christ we do not hold onto our fear and pain and grief.  We have been given the keys to the throne room.  We have been given admittance by amazing grace to walk into that place of glory, carrying in our arms our loved ones or whatever baggage of pain or trouble and give them to the Lord Jesus and Blessed Mother Mary and all the Saints and Angels around God's high seat to do with as He wills.   

When we are bold enough in our faith to walk into the throne room and lay them on the Lord's lap, being the wretched, motley beggars that we are, when we lay our brokenness, and we are all grievously broken at the feet of our Lord, we can give thanks and praise for the miracle and grace of His Love for us and His workings in our lives. And we are taught to give thanks and praise and believe in the miracle of God's will.  Where else could we turn with our life struggles that would be better?  Where else can we leave our loved ones, our sickness, our brokenness, our hearts that are becoming shards in our chest?  

Be ready to enter the kingdom.  Each Mass we prepare ourselves to receive Jesus, to be ready for the grace He gives.  We shuffle up in our rags and blackness and hold out our hands and open our lips but the power we are taking into the inner most part of our being is a radical and terrifying power that comes gently and quietly.  I could fall before Him but I keep moving, I cross myself, I keep praying and fill with the gift that has been falling through me all the time and before time. 

We participate in this creation and gift of Love each Mass. I try to ready myself but there is only so much a creature can do in her botched up ways but beg for mercy. 

Please offer up your suffering and those suffering to our merciful Lord and give thanks and praise, for nothing is impossible with God if only we of little faith could see and believe.  Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It may not turn out as we want but our loved ones and ourselves are in the arms of Our Lord to do as He wills and that is peace that surpasses all understanding.

The Lord is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing.

He has taken me to green pastures,
  he has led me to still waters;
  he has healed my spirit.
He has led me along right paths

  for his own name’s sake.

Even if I walk in the valley of the shadow of death,
  I shall fear no evil, for you are with me:
  your rod and your staff give me comfort.

                                                             Psalm 22

The Feast Of The Immaculate Conception

Alleluia, alleluia!
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!
     Blessed art thou among women.
Alleluia!

	Luke 1:28

                                                                      

                                                       "...I say that we are wound
                                                         With mercy round and round
                                                         As if with air: the same

                                                     Is Mary, more by name.       
                                                     She, wild web, wondrous robe,
                                                         Mantles the guilty globe,
                                                         Since God has her dispense
                                                         Her prayers his providence:
                                                         Nay, more than almoner,
                                                         The sweet alms’ self is her
                                                         And men are meant to share
                                                         Her life as life does air."
                                                                                              
                                                                                               The Blessed Virgin compared
                                                                                           to the Air we Breathe
                                                                                                         Gerard Manley Hopkins

Advent Night

First Sunday of Advent

O Come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God Appear...
                                                             Church Hymn

                                                                                                                                  Painting by D. Jones

                            
                                                    We are waning
                                                    With the moon

                                                    While the hills are becoming
                                                    A tracery of silver light

                                                    Like the backs of fish
                                                    Glinting from deep shades of water

                                                    We reflect the light 
                                                    And bear all that is dark

                                                    Latticing dead stars and
                                                    Spinning rocks

                                                    Winding round
                                                    This solitude

                                                    Winding round
                                                    This waiting beneath

                                                    His radiance vaulting 
                                                    Our domes of darkness

                                                    And longest nights.