“My Soul Longs for you…
…like
a dry and weary land without water.” (Ps. 63) We live always in Advent. We
marvel at him who has come in history and who will come finally in majesty.
Most of all we marvel at him who is always coming to meet us in the mystery of
our common human encounters. History, Mystery, and Majesty. The deep desire of
this holy season of the Church Year is a heart-hunger springing from our
woundedness, our sense of powerlessness, our craving for genuine peace. We
might do well to ponder the image given us for this season of our longing. It
is the image of a helpless child. Indeed. Is this an appropriate image for the
God of the universe to offer us as we open this Jubilee Year of Mercy, this 800th
Anniversary Year of the Dominican Order dedicated to the proclamation of the
Word of God? Couldn’t God have managed something more spectacular?
You want spectacular? Bear with me. We are given a God who
thinks small. God begins there
because we are small. We are a speck of dust in a massive universe. So God
begins small, a tiny thing growing in a woman’s womb for nine months. By the
Spirit’s power this little thing is clothed with humanness drawn from his
mother’s DNA (our same stuff, by the way). God thinks it’s wonderful. Something
for the hair follicle here, something for the pelvic bone there. A gentle quiet
becoming, day by day, no teeth and blind eyes at birth. Take a long loving
look. What is he, the silent Word, telling us about ourselves? We too begin
small. We inch along, becoming ourselves all our lifelong. Even more, he is
with us in the process, on the way. Maybe it’s just what we need to
hear…especially on the dark days.
*****
Outlandish Lord!
Between desert and city land – Imagine! A barn – and the steamy, rough company
of asses created by a tiny pudgy hand.
Child! You throw a star, you suck your thumb, and wise men come. You
nestle down among us in our alley ways. Deceitful loveliness: Content with
shepherds’ gaze and bloodied infants’ praise alike. Grasp my hand, you little
tyke. Free me from the clutches of my fearful clutching ways. Let me worship
you in peeking, touching, playing, and on your foolish, babbling saying let me
linger. Infant! Who has got who around whose baby finger? (Tad Dunne)
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