One Solitary Life

 

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

This essay was adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”). If you are interested, you can read the original version .

Let It Be Done Unto Me According to Your Word

In (Luke 1:39-45) Mary yields to the will of God and serves as as an eternal model for us. In Her words "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word," 

Mary's example reminds us that we too share in the birth of Christ. The Word speaks to us when we open our hearts and listen; when we let go of all our worldly distractions and surrender to God's will. He speaks through our senses, in words,  sounds, and often a palpable presence within us...a mere feeling. When we are open to His will we participate with Mary in his birth in us...as the Word becomes our flesh, and we  and become bearers of his light and celebrate the birth of love in the world. 

Let it be done unto me according to your word.  Let the Word that was in the beginning with God become flesh from my flesh. Let the Word, I pray, be to me, not as a word merely spoken, only to pass away, but conceived in flesh, and remain with us forever. 

Let him be, not only to be heard with our ears, but to be seen with our eyes, felt with our hands, borne on our shoulders and cradled in our arms. Let the Word be to me, not as a word written and silent, but vibrant and alive in me. Words that are not just traced with dead signs upon dead parchment but livingly impressed in human form upon my chaste womb; not by the tracing of a pen of lifeless reed, but by the work of the Holy Spirit. (Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) In Defense of Humility, Watch for the Light, p38)

Can we be Today's John The Baptist

 

In recent weeks our world news and discussions have focused on the aftermath of the elections one month ago and the  subsequent political fallout that at best can hardly be called our "finest hour." In addition, the incessant news cycles and talking heads comingled with the noise of Christmas advertisements, reminds us that all is not calm, all is not bright. 

Father Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest writes of another turbulent time in history from 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. (Luke 3:10-18) For how could we know 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 are original individuals, struck by the urgency of their  mission and vocation. 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. If we want to be alive we  must believe in the golden seed of God that the angels have scattered and still offers to open hearts. 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. 

“The Blessed Woman… is the most comforting of all the Advent figures. 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. 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. 

 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. (Watch for the Light, The Shaking Reality of Advent,”pp.90-91)"

Can we become today’s John The Baptists

Our Time in the Desert

Adversity can play a key role in honing our ability to hear what is beyond the usual scope of our ordinary consciousness. No doubt for many of us the Covid 19 pandemic that began in the winter of 2020 and endures through 2024, forced us to face stressful challenges that were outside the “norm” of our usual experience. I wonder how this time and the early days of confinement and isolation heightened our awareness of events that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. 

Many people seek so-called desert “experiences” by way of solitary retreats during which forced confinement might help provide clarity and enlightenment that otherwise might be overlooked or taken for granted in “ordinary times” during which we are surrounded by our family, friends and our "usual routine."

Unlike John-the-Baptist in Luke 3:1-6 , we don’t always get a chance to choose our desert times and places. They are often provided for us in the form of illness, social unrest, war, changes in employment, failures in relationships, death of loved ones and natural disasters. These deserts all hold new possibilities for hearing the word of God at ever deepening levels. 

Speaking personally, it’s not too soon for me to assess how forced confinement has been a transformational experience. Perhaps it’s still too easy for me to dwell on the things I missed or have been taken away. It’s not a matter of addition or subtraction or replacing what no longer is with something else. What no longer exists still does in one aspect of my being and may be a springboard to new ways of living and personal growth. One thing we all know up close and personal:  life can turn on a dime and that the present is only as certain as our last breath. It’s all we can count on in this dimension.