Third Friday of Advent - December 21, 2018

The Open Space

Luke 1:39-45


In Luke 1:36, the angel Gabriel seeks to convince a hesitant Mary that she indeed will have a child. As one of his corroborating claims, he tells Mary that her cousin Elizabeth is expecting a child even at her advanced age.

In those days, then, after the encounter with Gabriel, Mary hurries to see Elizabeth. Both women are in awkward places . . . Elizabeth as an aging mother-to-be . . . and Mary as a too-young, too-virgin mother-to-be. No doubt both were joyful, but also more than a bit concerned about their situations. Together they could support and comfort each other, as well as share their joy. Few others would understand their strange predicaments and few would be sympathetic to their situations.

Their meeting, though, includes a surprising confirmation of God's work. When Elizabeth hears Mary's greeting, the child within her leaps in recognition and joy. Perhaps the greeting was the typical Hebrew, "shalom."

But it may as well have been the ancient "namaste" . . . "the Divine living in me greets the Divine living in you."

Theotokos (God-bearer) icons often depict Mary holding Jesus. Some depict Jesus in Mary's womb. This icon, based on the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, depicts the new life within the wombs of both women. Both bear new life.

In 1965, Thomas Merton wrote about the deepest, most interior and hidden center within each of us. He called it le point vierge, literally "the virgin point." But the French phrase might better be translated the open center or the waiting space. This open space at our core is where we are most deeply and intimately connected to God, where none of our usual humanness selfishness litters, but where we are completely open to God . . . that place within us which only God can access, available only to God.

This is what Merton says:

Again, that expression, le point vierge, (I cannot translate it) comes in here. At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. . . . I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.
[Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, (New York: Image, 1965), 158.]

It seems to me that these two women knew well le point vierge and that they each said their, "Yes!" to it.

As the Christian mystics have reminded us through the centuries, "Like recognizes like." The new life within Elizabeth recognizes the new life in Mary . . . and the life Mary bears recognizes the life Elizabeth bears.


For Reflection:

** Perhaps today you would greet Mary with the words of the Christian mystic, Hildegard of Bingen:

Mary, ground of all being,
Greetings!
Greetings to you lovely and loving Mother!
You birthed to earth your Son.
You birthed the Son of God from heaven
by breathing the Spirit of God.

** What within you leaps when Mary enters the room? Ponder that image for a moment.

** In what concrete way are you theotokos (a bearer of God) this Advent?

Third Wednesday of Advent - December 19, 2018

Emptiness Breeds Hope

Judges 13:2-7, 24-25
Luke 1:5-25


Ancient peoples valued childbearing as a sign of fruitfulness and blessing. People devoted themselves to gods and goddesses of fertility to assure abundant crops, many children, and plentiful resources.

While the Hebrew people did not have deities who oversaw fertility, they were continually tempted to give homage to the fertility gods and goddesses of other nations. Infertility, in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, was a state of dishonor.

In fact, the prevalent theological understanding in both testaments took an extreme view of childlessness. Having no children signaled God's curse and was seen as God's punishment for something the woman or a family member had done. To live a life of barrenness was a harsh sentence that meant ostracism and reduced standing in the community.

Yet, scripture also contains a rich history of women in Israel who were barren for long periods of time before God intervened to give them children (Sarah, Hannah, among others). In many instances, these children became important leaders in Israel.

Today's Old and New Testament readings tell two of these stories.

Judges 13 tells the story of Samson, born to Manoah and his wife who had been childless. "Barren" typically describes a woman like Mrs. Manoah in scripture. Her womb was empty, in other words. But God intervened and gave them Samson, a child they specially dedicated to God as a Nazirite. Samson would grow to become an Israelite hero.

Luke tells the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, childless and advanced in years. Luke is careful to line out for his readers that both Elizabeth and Zechariah remained faithful to God despite their "empty" condition -- which their community likely viewed as God's curse -- even while they continued living in hope.

God's intervention in Elizabeth and Zechariah leads to the birth of John the Baptist, who we have met already this Advent.

The stories stand against the notion that childlessness is curse, and against a fated understanding of life's unfolding. God is in control of history . . . not just the world's history, but also the history of you and me. We are not subject to the whims of human initiative or efforts to control life by means that make sense to us.

The stories also suggest that God values emptiness, and the rest of scripture validates this truth. The one who is empty lives in hope, open to God's filling. About this hope that arises from emptiness, Thomas Merton said:

Supernatural hope is the virtue that strips us of all things in order to give us possession of all things. We do not hope for what we have. Therefore, to live in hope is to live in poverty, having nothing. And yet, if we abandon ourselves to the economy of Divine Providence, we have everything we hope for.
[Merton, No Man Is an Island, pp. 14-15]


For Reflection:

Reflect on some way you feel empty today. In what way are you "barren"? Perhaps you are barren of energy . . . empty of creativity . . . drained of love . . . peace is gone . . . missing the company of a person who is far away.

Today's meditation suggests that emptiness is the beginning of hope. Our poverty feeds hope in God and prepares us inwardly to receive the whatever-may-come of God without controlling what the whatever-may-come looks like.