The Mysterious Coming

This year Christmas is on a Sunday. Yes, we are remembering the coming of the Christ in history, and the Church will be reminding us during this month of the final coming in majesty. The humanness and powerful images captivate our attention. Yet there is a subtle coming that can escape us if we do not intentionally heighten our awareness of it.

The risen Christ in his transformed humanness meets us in a thousand disguises. His Easter message was “Now I will no longer be with you the former way. I will be wherever you are.” This nearness, this intimacy, can be unnerving, because it is so personal. He is always at my side. He accompanies me as I fold my laundry and brush my teeth. He holds me in grief. He guards me when I sleep. This mysterious ‘coming’ is something he decided long ago. It is I who am out and about. It is I who forget and mistakenly think I am alone. The result is often anxiety, worry, fear, and sadness. These unwanted guests are in my house all too often. But there is a holy trick. They can be put to service.

 In these dark days of winter, when my mood is heavy, there can be a sly smile on my soul. Each time I notice my mood I can call out, and I can use the awareness to remember. I can remember that no matter my mood, no matter the circumstances, no matter my discomfort or outright pain, nothing can separate me from him. The mysterious ‘coming’ is my own. I am coming to a deepened awareness. My Advent is a coming in mystery…a coming to a new awareness of a new truth. Yes, he came…and he has never left.

 I sometimes think my soul is empty

like an empty house

or a kitchen table with no one around it.

But I am mistaken.

My soul is an open window

and the Spirit’s breath

often blows in to kiss my cheek.

Through my soul I am connected with all of you.

I reach all those weeping and I sit with those with no home.

I gaze across the sea at those bobbing in lifeboats

hoping to reach a safe shore.

At the table of my soul sits a distinguished Guest.

He is there each day to have a cup of coffee,

and each day I am aware of his wounded hands and feet.

He makes himself at home.

Sometimes I forget.

But I am learning to remember he is just around the corner of my mind.

The One who is always coming…

Epilogue to Francis’ Dream

 As preachers, we’ve been putting our ear to the heart of the Church, in listening to Pope Francis dream in print. He has led us back to the original spirit of the early Church…the synodal Church.  His book, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, has an epilogue. We’ll now take a look at his ‘last word.’ Sometimes a thinker gives us the summation of his/her thought in an Epilogue…!

 Francis does not disappoint. He gives us two words, and they both identify us as ‘pilgrim.’ The two words are decenter and transcend. In giving us these final words, he distinguishes between someone going round and round in a labyrinth, and someone on a pilgrimage. The first can return to where one has started and remain the same. The pilgrim returns different. The pilgrim is changed.

 To decenter means to intentionally shift from concentrating on myself to becoming more and more aware of everyone around me. In our time, this means resisting the narcissistic urge. Decentering shifts our attention to union…the bonding that is everywhere in my life.

 To transcend means to refuse to give into the fixation on my powerlessness and failures. It means we refuse the luxury of despair. There is always some small thing I might do, some small thing I might give, if it be only a smile.

 To decenter and transcend. These indeed might be my daily Advent project. I might feel I only have a stable-like shelter to offer, but it transcends sleeping in the barnyard in the cold. I might feel the only strength I have is a stubborn will. Then I will put it to use daily to decenter, and delight in each person who enters my personal space. Who knows? I might be entertaining an angel unawares…! Thank you, Francis, for opening your heart to us…for dreaming out loud in print…and showing us a shepherd’s heart.