Luke 2:1-20
“God’s ways are not our ways. Mary thought deeply about everything that took place in order to discover what God was saying. When we are seeking God’s will we must not ignore the obvious. We have the commandments, and the teaching and example of Jesus. However, there are times when things are not so obvious. In our reading, the shepherds heard about the birth of the Messiah from a choir of heavenly angels. Usually we do not receive messages like that, and we have to walk by faith, which is dark in the sense that what we believe may not be the most obvious thing. The Carmelite St. John of the Cross writes beautifully about the “dark night” as a metaphor for the inevitable sense of loss that the individual prayer experiences as he or she matures. It is a law of human development that we have to leave behind many stages in order to grow up. It is tragic to meet someone who is an adult but whose emotional responses are more suited to a child. Normally we learn from the experience of life what is appropriate and what is not. In the relationship with God, the believer has to grow up, and in doing so leave behind a childish way of relating. The Gospel command to be childlike is not the same as being childish. We have to learn to relate as adult children of God.“It can be hard to leave ways or things that gave us some security. If other things do not take their place immediately, the individual will go through a process that is akin to mourning. Contemplative prayer is something that God does in us, and not something we can do. However, it seems that God often responds when we show that we are in earnest. Of course, as soon as you think you have God figured out, things will not happen the way you think! In the analogy we used in reflection 7, we can only wait at the number 9 bus-stop. Perhaps we will have to wait there a very long time, or perhaps, the bus will come very quickly. God may call us to greater silence, and may waken gently within us, as it were. At first, the presence of God will be so gentle as to be virtually imperceptible. Our awareness of God’s presence and action within us may grow or may not. That is not really important. What is important is that we respond in whatever way we can to what we believe God is doing within us.
My reflection:
From the moment Mary received the call from the angel, she was cast into a deepening experience of God. The crises just flowed like a flooding river after a storm. Dealing with the relationships with her parents and with Joseph were so difficult that she needed further divine intervention to clear the confusion and possible shame.In today’s scene, her heart is filled with growing wonder and joy. Yet she is engulfed in a helpless poverty that challenged the message of the angel. The shepherds, the poorest and most marginalized of all in her day, bring another message from the heavenly choir of angels.
Her searching for some common-sense dimension of the experience just heightens the ironies: confusion in poverty but the assurance from the angels; total simplicity in the birth wrapped in the bewildering mystery of the most unlikely of circumstances; the openness of the shepherds proclaiming the Savior and the hiddenness of God in the weakness and poverty of the Infant. It is no wonder; Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” (Lk 2:19) This was just the beginning of her journey!
Chalmers’ reflection of how we grow in our experience of God should open us to the need to walk a dark path of faith. This is so clear in the Bethlehem scene.
Our encounter with God demands a purification and transformation. God desires to change us and make space for the loving presence. This is a long and often difficult process. We are leaving a world totally centered on ourselves. The idols and false gods must die. We need to create space by a journey of letting go in deep faith.
This maturing process demands transition and abandonment. These are not our usual thoughts when we think of spiritual progress and growth in prayer.
Looking at Mary and the world-shattering experience of the angel’s call can help us as we are called deeper into the Mystery of Love. God knows what is best for us. God’s work in us and God’s plan are only possible if we accept them God’s terms.
Chalmers lays out an invitation for us to make the journey to spiritual maturity in footsteps of Jesus. We will soon realize that there are few heavenly songs of the angels in the growing transformation in our life. God is into ironies where darkness and silence unleash the true music of heaven.
