Dear Friends,
Christmas is upon us! Though, this year, we do have almost a full Fourth Week of Advent. Sometimes, when Christmas lands on a Monday or Tuesday, the Fourth Week of Advent is very short. So this year we get a few more days to prepare for our celebration of the Incarnation.
Today’s readings tell of Mary’s hasty journey into the hill country to see her cousin Elizabeth after she had found out from the angel that she was going to have a baby. Advent invites all of us to contemplate the experience of a pregnant woman as we share with Mary her joy and anxiety over the approaching birth of her son.
Here is a reflection on pregnancy from Wendy Wright who teaches at Creighton: “The new life growing inside you profoundly shapes your own life. A new self-concept grows, a new sense of embodiment impinges on consciousness, a new “other” holds sway from within. You are not who you thought you were. Rather, you are a person whose identity – psychic, spiritual, and physical – is intimately linked to another person. You are persons overlapped in time and space, sharing breath and blood and heartbeat. During the waiting most women are keenly aware of time. Time measured out between obstetrical appointments, time weighed between added pounds and unwieldiness, time parceled out by the growing awareness of presence – from the first moth-like flutters of the “quickening” to the astonishing protrusions of stretching feet and arms…suddenly the coming is upon you, and time dissolves. There is only the present in its gleaming, stark clarity. No past, no future, there is only now – this time which is strangely timeless in its intensity. There are as many different experiences of birth as there are women, but for all of them the waiting is over. The promised one bursts forth, new life sings out, the primal rush of blood and water carries the miracle into our arms. It is a moment whose mystery is timeless.”
In a certain sense what we celebrate every Christmas is the new birth of Christ in each one of us. He takes flesh again in us. He cries in our cries and he laughs in our laugh. He hungers in our flesh and loves through our skin. The Incarnation once begun never comes to an end.
Advent reminds us how important it is for us to prepare to live as Christ lived – to bring his presence to the poor and suffering again. How we speak to others and how we act toward them should embody Christ. It is not because of anything the poor have done or the cause of people’s hurt that motivates us to act. Rather, it is because of who we are that we act with compassion and concern – it is what Jesus would do – he takes flesh in us.
In this last week of preparation may you feel Christ’s movements in you, may you lose time with Jesus, may you find your new identity in Christ and when we celebrate Christmas may you share the miracle of God becoming flesh at the very depth of your being.
Peace,
Fr. Damian