Reflecting on I Sam. 3:3b-10, 19

How are you sleeping these days? Do you nod off and sleep easily through the night? Or do you, like the child Samuel, often awake with the sense that you are being called, and then can’t get back to sleep until you finally acknowledge that it is God who is nudging you?

Maybe your dreams are where God is revealing a path for you. If you have a recurring dream―maybe the one where you forgot to go to class all semester and now it’s time to take the final, or ones as urgent as the dreams that alerted me to a ten-centimeter ovarian mass in 2004―it’s possible that God is using your subconscious to guide and heal you.

Then of course there is simply the tossing and turning that goes with finding night-time peace with day-time conflicts. How much longer can you bite your tongue at work? Will the new generation of graduates get the job you’ve excelled at for years? For that matter, will any of the older generation step aside so that your own kids can find meaningful work?

And speaking of the kids, do you lose sleep worrying that they aren’t happy, aren’t healthy, and will probably not carry on the faith that has sustained you your entire life? That’s a lot of sleep to lose over worries that have kept parents awake forever, including, most probably, your own.

But here’s the secret. In all your midnight wrestlings, God is there. It might be that God is aiding you in resolving problems.  Or, just possibly, God is calling you. In that case, the only thing to do is to rouse yourself and say, “Speak, Lord. I’m listening.”

In what ways does God use your sleep to heal you?

Reflecting on Mark 1: 7-11

I imagine that some things take us close to the bliss of heaven. A good book and a blazing fire on a cold night have got to be a glimpse of heaven. Plunging yourself into the Jordan River for the repentance of sins you will never commit is another encounter with the Divine.

Huh? Well, isn’t that just how it happened? Jesus, the Sinless One, allowed himself to be baptized by John, for repentance of sin. In so humbling himself and taking on our human form completely, Jesus came out of the water and straight into the Beatific Vision.  He saw the heavens open and the Spirit descend upon him. And he heard the Father’s voice claiming him as the Beloved Son. A glimpse of heaven, indeed.

Sometimes, when the sun is shining and I’m out on the porch with a book, I’m pretty sure that heaven and earth have touched. But my husband, who visited India recently, reports that he saw heaven and earth meet when a dying woman in the street reached out to take the bread he offered her. She looked him in the eye and found his heart, longing to be met.

He has never witnessed the misery of others so keenly. He has never experienced the nearness of God so profoundly. In that moment, the heavens opened, the Spirit descended, and he heard a voice say, “This is my beloved daughter. Hold her gaze.”

Every day we have the chance to split the veil that seems to divide heaven and earth. Often it’s our communion with another that brings the Spirit hovering, and God’s voice in our hearts naming us as beloved.

When have you experienced the meeting of heaven and earth?

Reflecting on Matthew 2: 1-12

And so we come back to the beautiful story of those wise men from the East.  And our questions arise as surely as the Star.

How is it that they observed the Star at its rising?  Why did they, Gentiles who knew nothing of the promised Messiah, leave everything to seek a newborn King of Judea? And, the harder question: if the Star hovered over the house where the Holy Family stayed in Bethlehem, with none of the Jews in the City of David noticing it, how did the Gentiles see it clearly from afar and find the Messiah through its Light?

St. Matthew (the only one of the four Gospel writers who knows this Epiphany story) is telling his Jewish/Christian community something beautiful: those who seek Jesus will surely find Him, whether born into the right bloodlines or not.

And there’s something else here too: are we ready to follow the Stars that arise in our lives, to be utterly open to the Surprising Love of the One who meets us in our comings and goings, our dreaming and our rising, our instinctive drawing near to him who drew so near to us?

In this new year let’s resolve again to keep our eyes wide open for the Christ who comes to us in a thousand different ways, bidden and unbidden,  searching for us even more earnestly than we are searching for him.

In what ways do you sense that God is seeking you?

Reflecting on Colossians 3: 12-21

Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas this year? Because I’m sure I saw more presents for you, hidden under the tree and tucked away in secret places where you can find them at just the perfect time.

Here’s one addressed to you from “Heartfelt Compassion”. You’ll feel your heart break open as you feel “’with passion” the daily struggle of a family member whose addiction has already strained the bonds of love in your family. It’s okay. Feel that tenderness and love for your broken relative once again. It’s Christmas for them too, with all its promises of God with us.

This next gift goes with it, so open up “Kindness” too. This is SUCH a perfect gift for you because it will keep surprising you all year! Watch for the kindness of a sister who sends the funniest birthday card, or the patience of the parent who never stops believing in you, and trusting that you will pull your life together.

Here’s a priceless gift: “Humility”. It will present itself in the form of your sweet spouse taking out the trash every single day, without ever saying a word. Or maybe it will be your adult child, calling to say, “Remember how hard I fought to get you to let me hang out with my friends when I was fourteen? I’ve never thanked you for holding your ground and keeping me safe.”

There are lots more presents, and they will come from beloved ones who aren’t your biological family, but with whom you have created bonds of love just as strong. It’s a holy family, this Body of Christ. Happy Feast Day.

How are you working to strengthen your family bonds?

Reflecting on Luke 1: 26-38

My mother and father didn’t see him. I was working at the grinding stone, grinding wheat to make the bread for the noonday meal.

I think I felt him before I saw him. The air around me seemed to change, as if a sudden rainstorm was brewing. I looked up and saw a flash of light, and then a luminous figure stood before me. I was too shocked to speak, too mesmerized to move.

Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you. My breath stopped. I couldn’t turn my eyes away. I suddenly knew what my heart has known my whole life. God has given me a grace unlike any other graces. For this moment I was born. My spirit leapt and began rejoicing.

Speak, I wordlessly told the angel. Speak, and tell my soul what it has known from the moment I was conceived in my mother Anna’s womb.

He spoke. I joyfully uttered my yes. And the Spirit of the Most High overshadowed me with so much grace and peace that a new life was created in my virgin womb. Blessed be God forever.

I set out in haste to visit my cousin Elizabeth, for God who is mighty has done great things for her also. And her child somehow already knew what God has done! When I greeted Elizabeth her baby leapt in her womb! This cousin isn’t even born yet, and he is already announcing my son.

Here’s something important for you to know. From the second my baby was conceived I began to feel a mother’s love for every person who has ever lived. And especially for you. Now, and at the hour of your death. AMEN.

Have you ever been touched by an angel?

Reflecting on I Thessalonians 5:16-24

Test everything. Retain what is good.

Paul’s advice to the church at Thessalonica sounds so easy, but how do you really know how to test the counsel that you receive, and keep what is good?  How, for that matter, does an intelligent person read the paper, watch the news, or vote in an election? Is it possible to see through the spin and discern who, if anyone, is telling the truth?

St. Paul is guiding the infant church in Thessalonica, the second largest city in Greece, in the ways to live their lives now that they have put on Christ. Since Paul’s letters precede any of the gospels―and since this is, in fact, his earliest letter, written less than twenty years after the resurrection― their questions take on even more urgency.  How DO they live their new lives in Christ? How DO they become mature and faithful disciples of Jesus?

There are no gospels, no Catechism of the Catholic Church, not even any other Pauline letters circulating around to give guidance to this early Christian community.  They are dependent upon what they learned from Paul himself when he visited two years earlier and founded the church there. They are a newborn creation, but how, then, should they live?

Huh. Somehow, modern Christians can’t figure that out either. We feel guilty no matter which way we vote. We feel certain that God is calling us to this job, this house, this friendship, and then things change and we’re not so sure.

St. Paul’s words give us guidance. Do not quench the Spirit. Refrain from every kind of evil. And surely John the Baptist would add, Prepare the way of the Lord.

How is Advent going for you so far?

Reflecting on Mark 1: 1-8

The funniest bumper sticker I’ve ever seen has a kind of Advent tint to it: Jesus is coming back. Look busy.

I still chuckle. What makes it funny, I think, is that it betrays our hapless misunderstanding of the Divine. If Jesus is coming back―and, by the way, he never left, thanks to his abiding Holy Spirit―then it must be like the teacher coming back into the room, or the boss returning from a trip.

Look busy, everybody! Because everything we’ve been doing while the boss was gone must be worthless. Working on projects, answering e-mails on our own schedule, or even taking a delicious sick day must all be a waste of the company’s money. The boss wants us to work, work, work, and if we work enough we’ll get promoted so we can work even harder.

Yuck. What an odd and unhappy Jesus we must be expecting.  We see in the gospel that people of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were making the trek out to the desert to hear John and be baptized by him. And I’ll bet they were all willing to use their sick days to get there.

Why? Because they sensed that John was the witness of the One to come, and they wanted to be as close as they could get.

I suspect that, if Jesus has questions of us at his return, they will be something like this: Did you notice the astounding beauty of the world? Did you love as well as you could? Did you dig deep and find the grace to forgive?

And, finally, I imagine him asking that great question  that Aslan, The Christ figure in the last book of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, asks each of us:

I have known you long. Do you know me?

Do you love Advent? I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t. And these days, after reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s exquisite book Learning to Walk in the Dark, I think I know why. After the long days of summer and the fading lights of fall, we’re finally ready to give in to the dark. Advent gives us permission to stay in the dark for four delicious weeks.

Something there is that doesn’t love the dark, but there is another part of us that craves it. Even the most roaring extrovert is grateful to crawl under the covers and let the night come in, with its healing dreams and restorative quiet.

And it is in the dark, of course, where we keep watch the best. The stars guide sailors to safe ports, and the changing shapes of the moon give expression to our own spiritual shifts, from consolation to desolation and back again.

This Advent I’m trying something new, and my soul is ready for it. I’m going to spend more time in the dark. I’m going to watch the darkness give way to the dimmest violet―an Advent color, by the way―in the early hours of the morning. I’m going to sit in the pitch dark―or at least as dark as our over-lit urban landscape allows―and listen for coyotes and night song.

It was, after all, in the night watch when the angels appeared in the sky, announcing the birth of the Savior and singing their Glorias to highest heaven. Just think: if the shepherds hadn’t been spending the night in a pitch-black field they would have missed the greatest moment in the history of the world.

It’s getting dark. It’s time to go outside.

What sacred memories do you have of meeting God in the dark?

Reflecting on Mark 13: 33-37

Advent begins next week, and with it comes a new gospel. This is the last we will hear from Matthew―except, always, on Epiphany, since he is the only evangelist who knows the story of the Magi―until we return to him in December of 2016.

Before we turn the page to Mark’s gospel, then, it’s good to remember what Jesus tells us, over and over again, in Matthew’s brilliant gospel. It’s really just one word: mercy.

Go and learn the meaning of this: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. This is what he tells the learned Pharisees, shocked that Jesus has called a tax collector (Matthew)to be one of the Twelve, and is even now having dinner at his house (9:13)!

This is a bit like a professor telling a veterinarian student, “Go and learn the meaning of the word cat”. It’s deeply insulting to the scripture-quoting Pharisees, because Jesus is quoting the famous passage from Hosea 6:6.They have known that text from their youth, yet here is Jesus telling them to go learn it again.

Pope Francis has said about his papacy, “I think this is a time of mercy.”  And about the gospels: “The Lord’s most powerful message is mercy.”  In fact, his first major book as Pope has just been published, with this beautiful title: The Church of Mercy.

But if it’s all about mercy, what, then, are we to make of the God who rescues and heals the lost and scattered, but destroys the “sleek and strong”? We hope that we will be the sheep who inherit the kingdom of heaven, but where is the mercy for those goats that God will cast into eternal fire?

Maybe Matthew’s final message to us this year is this: Christ the King will be the judge. And he will judge us on how merciful we were.

In what ways have you shown mercy this year?

Reflecting on Proverbs 31:10-13,19-20,30-31

It’s fun to consider the utter Jewishness of that reading from Proverbs today. We chuckle at the ancient Jewish male’s celebration of the perfect Jewish wife, but really, isn’t that the spouse we all want? She’s kind, industrious, an astonishing multi-tasker, brilliant in business and in keeping all the home projects on schedule, great with the kids, generous to those who are poor, and, best of all, everyone in town knows her smart her husband was to have married her.  Mazel tov!

I love to imagine Jesus, the Bridegroom, extolling us, his Bride, in a similar fashion:

The value of my Bride is far beyond pearls. I have entrusted my Sacred Heart to her.

She brings the planet good, and not evil, all her days.

Through her kindness and lack of ego, enemies begin to speak to one another

And those who were estranged join hands in friendship.

She reaches out her hands to those who are poor,

And extends her arms to those who are needy.

She yields to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

She is the first to say, “Forgive me”.

She believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Even in persecution, Her love never fails.

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting,

But those who hear the Word of God and do it

Will live in joy with Me forever.

How do you think the Church is doing as the Bride of Christ?