In recent
weeks our world news and our discussions have focused on post-election unrest, and
ongoing spikes in Covid 19 which had dampened the spirits of our traditional Thanksgiving
holiday and is proceeding to take aim at Christmas 2020. Despite our efforts to
muster some semblance of a Holiday spirit, the tinkling symbols of the Fourth Estate lean to the
side of hype as they report. Is it disease incidence or positive tests? Do they distinguish between or cases or lab values, or do they even know? And what about hospitalizations? Are all hospitalizations in the time of Covid due to the virus? The Pandemic has been a bonanza for media and politicians who
have inherited a windfall of publicity they could never ever managed on
their own. If I sound a little cynical, I am. I make no bones about it It’s a matter of trust in what we
hear and what we can believe. Our support systems are more interested in their own interests than the people they serve.
So, what does my rant have to do with our readings this week (Mark 1:1-8)? It's not a coincidence that The Baptist's time, like ours was a time of fear, distrust, unrest and confusion. Can we make Isaiah’s words for us, in our time, right now?
A voice cries out in the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed.
Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest writes of another turbulent time in our history. “we need a blessed Advent, a transformation, a time to ‘put
things back where the Lord God put them." The following is an adaptation of a
piece he wrote in a Nazi prison camp, shortly before he was hanged in 1945:
May the Advent figure of John, the relentless envoy and prophet in God’s
name, be no stranger in our wilderness of ruins. For how shall we
hear unless someone cries out above the tumult and destruction and delusion?
Not for an hour can life dispense with these John the Baptist characters, these
original individuals, struck by the lightening of mission and vocation. Theirs
is the great comfort known only to those who have paced out the inmost and
furthermost boundaries of existence. They cry for blessing and salvation. They
summon us to the opportunity of warding off - by the greater power of the
converted heart - the shifting desert that will pounce upon us and bury
us.
The horror of these times would be unendurable unless we kept being cheered
and upright again by the promises spoken….The first thing we must do if we want
to be alive is to believe in the golden seed of God that the angels have
scattered and still offer to open hearts. The second thing is to walk through
the gray days oneself as an announcing messenger. So many need their courage
strengthened; so many are in despair and in need of consolation; there is so much
harshness that needs a gentle hand and an illuminating word, so much loneliness
crying out for a word of release, so much loss and pain in search of inner
meaning. God’s messengers know of the blessing that the Lord has cast like a
seed into these hours of history. Understanding this world in the light of
Advent means to endure in faith, waiting for the fertility of the silent earth,
the abundance of the coming harvest. Not because we put our trust in the earth,
but because we have heard God’s message and have met one of God’s announcing
angels ourselves.
“That God became a mother’s son; that there could be a woman walking the earth
whose womb was consecrated to be the holy temple and tabernacle of God – that
is actually earth’s perfection and the fulfillment of its expectations. (Be it
Done Unto Me According to Thy Word)
So many kinds of Advent consolation stream from the mysterious figure of the
Blessed Expectant Mary. The woman has conceived the child, sheltered it beneath
her heart, and given birth to the Son. Advent is the promise denoting the new
order of things, of life, of our existence.
Advent comes in these three figures. This is not meant as an idyllic
miniature painting, but as a challenge. My real concern is not with beautiful
words, but with the truth. Let us kneel, therefore, and ask for the three-fold
blessing of Advent and its three-fold inspiration. Let us ask for clear
eyes that are able to see God’s messengers of the annunciation; for awakened hearts
with the wisdom to hear the words of promise. Let us ask for faith in the
motherly consecration of life as shown in the figure of the Blessed Woman of
Nazareth. Let us be patient and wait, wait with Advent readiness for the moment
when it pleases God to appear in our night too, as the fruit and mystery of
this time. And let us ask for the opening and willingness to hear God’s warning
messengers and to conquer life’s wilderness through repentant hearts.
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