God-Bearer

“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke 3:45)

We have reached the fourth Sunday of Advent.  This week we will see the longest, darkest night of the year, but we also see four candles piercing the darkness on our Advent wreath.  We have pondered together how these days of waiting call us to live deeply – with courage, to think deeply – with discernment, to feel deeply – with compassion.  Finally, with Mary as our guide, we consider our call to pray deeply – with faith.

Prayer implies faith – belief that there is a conversation partner, another person present.  Belief that God looks upon us as his beloved, that he seeks an intimate personal relationship with us, that he is never far from us, but on the contrary, closer to us than we are to ourselves.  We may need persuading of this.  Our Scriptures do not let us down.  The book of Genesis says of our first parents:
“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:8-9)
From the moment of creation, God sought intimacy with his creatures.  The tragedy is that we have hidden from him.  Again and again the pattern is repeated: God drew near to a certain person, revealing himself to this one in unusual and sometimes spectacular ways in order to draw the whole people to himself, and through his chosen people, all nations.  This is God’s agenda, his hidden plan, borne to fulfillment over the course of millennia.  We see it in the moment Abraham fell into a deep sleep and awoke to a mysterious presence, when Jacob wrestled with one whose name is too wonderful, when Moses emerged from the tent of meeting with face aglow, when Elijah heard God whisper and hid his face, when Jeremiah knew him as a fire in his bones, when Isaiah met one whose garment filled the temple and Ezekiel encountered him as a figure aflame in a chariot drawn by living creatures.

We can’t help noticing that all these stories involve men.  Do we lack female models in the Bible?  Certainly not.  As a child, I was spontaneously drawn to the women of the Old Testament, the matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and others.  No-one needed to tell me that God called them, too, and not just their husbands.  For these women, there was no story of a dramatic encounter with the divine, but there was ample evidence of a lived faith that God had a plan for their lives, a plan to give them hope, meaning, beauty and love.

Then came Mary.  On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, she comes to us as to Elizabeth with an unanticipated interior movement: a leap.  Her presence has been implicit throughout, but now she stands before us, beautiful, her body showing forth the fullness of her soul.  The fathers of the church wrote that Mary conceived first in her heart by faith, and then in her body.  In his beautiful discussion of Mary’s overshadowing in Starlight, John Shea emphasizes that the coming of the angel is an interior event:
“This encounter between Mary and the angel happens inside.  The angel is pictured as entering in.  In fact, there is an emphasis on inwardness throughout the story.  Mary is to conceive inside her womb without the aid of anything from the outside.  She enters into the house of Elizabeth and greets her.  When the sound of the greeting came into Elizabeth’s ears, the baby inside her leapt with joy.  This interior stirring unleashed the Holy Spirit.  Elizabeth is thrilled with what the inside of Mary will produce (“Blessed is the fruit of your womb”).  Mary responds by singing that inside her, her soul and spirit is expanding and rejoicing.  The “inside” imagery suggests that the angel addresses an inner, spiritual center.”
(John Shea, Starlight: Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long, 112)

Isaiah, too, sings of this moment:
“Let justice descend, you heavens, like dew from above,
    like gentle rain let the clouds drop it down.
Let the earth open and salvation bud forth;
    let righteousness spring up with them! 
    I, the Lord, have created this.” (Isa 45:8)
In Mary, our earth buds forth a Savior.  This is not just a metaphor, but a spiritual reality in which we, too, participate.  Our earth has been opened and sown with the seed of God’s Spirit.  Now, as we sleep and rise, he grows within us, we do not know how.  We know only that the earth must be watered for it to produce its yield.  What makes us grow is God’s rain, his grace given to us at every moment.  For our part, we must cultivate attention to Christ’s presence in the world, in events, in people, and in ourselves, to recognize and respond to Christ wherever he may be, whether Christ in me or Christ in the other.  Today, with the icon of the pregnant Mary before us, our attention is drawn to Christ within.

What is our experience?  St Bernard is clear that these visits of the Word, these felt moments of communion with Christ within, are “brief and rare.”  But they do happen.  And they form the foundation of our life of faith.  Perhaps it is easier to approach a description of how it happens from without.  Luke tells us that “Jesus was praying in a certain place” (Lk 11:1).  A certain place.  Not just anywhere.  Matthew has Jesus instruct us: “whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Mt 6:6).  Exterior places make way for the interior event.  We have places, don’t we, where God draws near.  It might be the womblike darkness and flickering illumination of a church.  Or the stillness of the stars.  Or warm sunlight falling on a rocking chair in a room full of the fragrance of books.  The hopeful blush of sunrise or the pierced surrender of sunset.  A windy day in winter with leftover leaves gusting.  Up to one’s elbows in soap suds, or up to one’s thighs in snow.  Something stirs within us.  Someone makes his presence known.

Prayer in such a place is prayer in secret.  Everyone has a secret, for themselves alone, or perhaps shared with a trusted other.  God and I share a secret.  The content of that secret is the particular contours of the relationship that has developed between us over the years.  “Closing the door of my room” or going to “a certain place” means that I enter into that secret and allow the combined force of my memories to soften and warm my heart.  I let go of the armor I wear to cope with daily life and the outside world.  I let go of my plans, my calculations and my drive for efficiency.  In my secret place, I am naked and vulnerable, but I do not need to hide.  I may be apprehensive, but I am not afraid, because the One whom I meet there is the One who made me.  He comes to stroll with me in the garden at the time of the evening breeze.

Such moments pass, but they leave their traces.  Like Mary, I am a God-bearer, big with memories treasured in the heart.  The secret I carry is the knowledge of being loved, which is the only thing that makes it possible to be sent.  Having found Christ within, I will now be able to find him without, in every person and place.  This memory will sustain me, like Elijah’s hearth cake, on the journey through the desert to the mountain of God.  Faith sustains prayer that is able to wait in the darkness, when it’s dark outside and even when it’s dark inside.
Again, Isaiah sings of this:
“I will give you the treasures of darkness
    and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
    the God of Israel, who call you by your name.” (Isa 45:3)
He assures us that everything in the end will prove to have been for our good, nourishment for the growth of Christ within.  Like Mary, we remember what God has promised and believe in its fulfilment.  We pray as on our Solemn Profession day: “Receive me, O Lord, according to your promise and I shall live; do not disappoint me in my hope.” (Psalm 119:116)

I would like to leave you with a poem by Jessica Powers which marvelously expresses the gift of Mary in our lives.

In Mary – Darkness
I live my Advent in the womb of Mary
And on one night when a great star swings free
From its high mooring and walks down the sky
To be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
With hope’s expectance of nativity.
I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
Guarded and loved me, though I could not see,
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
Someone is hidden in this dark with me.
(Jessica Powers)

Image: The Visitation, ca.1310–20, Metropolitain Museum of Art