A Late Advent Poem of St. John of the Cross

If You Want

If
you want
the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy,
and say,
“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,

as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us
is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation
come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim—
the sacred womb in your soul,

as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is
His beloved servant
never far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light
and sing 

–St. John of the Cross 

A pilgrim's reflection: the Lord's promises

  "Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled" (Lk 1: 45)

Today's gospel is the same gospel scene as the Fourth Sunday of Advent when Mary visits Saint Elizabeth. Saint Elizabeth's greeting to Mary is so simple and yet so deep, and it is shot through with the light of the Holy Spirit who, as St Luke says says, fills Elizabeth with His inspiration. 

Elizabeth is the first human to recognize the immense dignity of the 'mother of the Lord'. At the same time, she also gives expression to the humility we all need before the works of God - "why should I be honoured?" As we saw in our last Book of Life session, the gifts of the Holy Spirit perfect the theological virtues by moving them in a divine way. God moves through us by means of these gifts for our own sanctification; for this pilgrim at least, living in the divine Will expresses the link between the movement of the gifts of the Spirit in us day by day and the vocation that God has called us to from the beginning. And in the Visitation this is what we see in Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, exercising the gift of understanding and knowledge, and all the while bearing in her womb the one who will become the herald of the Lord. 

Through the gift of understanding - which enables us to penetrate revealed truths of the faith - Elizabeth sees and grasps Mary's place in God's plan and the holiness of the Child she carries. She also sees the holiness of Mary's faith in God's word, although it is not altogether clear which promise of the Lord she alludes to. We will come back to that in a moment.

Yet Elizabeth is also moved by the gift of knowledge - which enables us to understand creation in relation to the things of God - and thus she is cast into a deep sense of her own unworthiness as a creature who witnesses God's action in the world: "why should I be honoured?" she asks. Indeed, why should any of us be honoured enough to be given the gifts to know, love and serve God? And yet - mysteriously, beautifully - we are. And in our dignity as God's creatures and, even more so, as God's children through grace, we reflect something of the loveliness of God.

Thus, Elizabeth - moved now powerfully by these gifts of the Holy Spirit and a sense of her own inadequacy - pours out her greeting in a joy which fills both her and the child in her womb, the future John the Baptist. For joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and is like a sign of the action of God in our hearts and minds through His gifts and virtues. I can only imagine St Elizabeth in this moment, like many mothers whose unborn children give them a kick, clutching her tummy, then grinning with Mary in the embrace of reunited cousins whose paths have so marvellously converged, even as her mind floods with the immensity of Mary's presence: the presence of the mother of the Lord.

Finally - to come back to the promise of the Lord to Mary - surely this is the promise which the COLW Book of Life invites us all to believe in through all our darkest days and driest moments. It is the promise that God is on our side and fights for us. It is the promise that He will not let us down, however dire life appears. It is ultimately the promise that He is forming us as His children for an eternity of loving conviviality and celebration, where, like John the Baptist in his mother's womb, we can leap forever with joy in the bosom of the Father.

A pilgrim's reflection: faith

 "Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled" (Lk 1: 45)

Today's gospel is that tender meeting of Mary and St Elizabeth at the moment of the Visitation. It is one of those scenes we find only in St Luke to whom Our Lady must have recounted many details - how else would he know she kept all these things in her heart (Lk 2:19)? This is not the only time in the gospel that we find the faith of Mary praised. Later in Luke's gospel to the woman who proclaims Jesus' mother blessed for having borne and nursed him, Jesus replies: "Blessed rather are those who hear the word and God and keep it" (Lk 11:28) Mary's greatest privilege is her divine motherhood; but it seems that her outstanding quality is the depths of her faith in God.

Faith is one of the six gifts of Mary's soul that the Book of Life presents as especially pertinent to COLW. Yet faith - unlike charity which lasts for eternity - is a theological virtue specific to this life, the life of the wayfarers. How beautiful it is that wayfaring lies deep in the spiritual practices of Walsingham. To the ancient shrine pilgrims once came barefoot. Nowadays pilgrims can walk the Holy Mile to the Slipper Chapel. Thus, our eternal call is inscribed in the physical landscape of Norfolk, and our peregrinations through the fields rehearse the spiritual journey we commit ourselves to. If you have never walked the Holy Mile, it is really something you must do in Walsingham.

The idea of faith as a journey captures also two dimensions of every Christian life: the surety of the path and the drama of remaining true to it. Professing the faith, like knowing the path, tells us about the deep truth of the religion we hold: the truth ever ancient and ever new, the faith of the saints and martyrs, the rock-hard reality of revelation, be it ever so mysterious. But living by faith, like walking the path, is how we through grace slowly - hesitatingly, painfully at times - join in with that grand procession of saints, described by St Paul in Chapter 11 of the letter to the Hebrews: Abel, Hennoch, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Rahab and all the others that St Paul has no time to tell us about (as he says). 

By God's grace Mary wrote her own chapter in that tradition of living by faith, and she did so by believing in the promises made to her: ultimately by saying 'yes' to the Lord every day. The question for us, wayfarers like her, is whether we too will say 'yes' to the Lord every day of our lives. Will we embrace the faith and live by faith day by day, aspiring to join that great procession towards our eternal destiny? The task is great but it is not impossible to those who know the promises of God. If we are not great saints like Mary, at least we can perhaps be the 'rough beasts' of Yeats's poem, tottering on towards the stable where our Saviour enters the world in the sight of scoundrel shepherds (criminals in the ancient world) and strange foreign potentates. 

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming

Practicing Mary's Openness on Her Feast

For the feast of the Immaculate Conception today we have the Gospel telling of the Annunciation.  We have been pondering this particular mystery a lot lately and its easy to let the familiar lines wash over us.

But what if the request made of Mary, that changed her life as well as the trajectory of the universe, were also a request of us?  What if God is asking something of us too?  Maybe there's a plan for us?

In reading and pondering today's Gospel we see again what we have reflected on in this month's third Book of Life presentation.  Mary was fully open and fully obedient to God.  Her seeking for clarification wasn't distrust or fear.  Surely the fact that we have her question recorded for us to read today shows that Mary was a woman who was used to prayer and used to dialoguing with God - in the same way as we see in many men of the Old Testament.  Mary was quite ready to speak up and ask her question - because she was used to speaking to God and conversing with Him.  She doesn't question the plan or argue, she is going to say yes anyway, we know that!

How do we normally relate to God?  Do we dialogue?  Mary was open not only to God's will but to the fact that He was interested in her life.  It was no surprise to Mary that He could and would make a request of her and that He would make His actions known in her world.  She was always in an ongoing dialogue with God.

Mary was steeped in the Scriptures and knew the ways of the Father.  As the handmaid of the Lord she was immersed in His ways and knew how He could act.  Mary trusts that God loves her and wants the best for her.  She relates to Him from a full heart, a place of abundance, rather than fear - knowing God will protect her and that all He asks of her will be for her good.  Mary trusts that God has a plan for her life.

Do we really trust that God has a plan for our lives?  Do we come with full hearts, without fear?  Do we expect to be blessed and loved or are we often just waiting to be judged and chastised?

Though outwardly the plan would appear to be one destined to cause her ruin, pain and only suffering, Mary says yes!  Shew steps out on faith but maybe not blind faith.  This is the faith of someone who really knows the persopn she is putting her trust in.  She deeply trusts the One she is risking her life with, the One who is asking her life of her.  This isn't a teenage dare or flighty scheme - rather a mature, free stepping out and full choice to live. 

God also has a plan for us - for today, this week and this life.  Do we really trust Him for that?  We need to be able to attune our heart to listen and hear His plan for us.  We can often spend a lot of time asking God to bless our plans and making requests for our lives.  What if we were to spend some time asking Him what His plan is for us?  One thing we can be sure of: God has a good and holy plan for us!