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Almost too soon, it is Christmas Eve. A busy night. Christmas trees and gifts and Christmas Eve dinners. Christmas family traditions, decorating, preparation for Christmas Day cooking. Christmas cookies, and wrapped Christmas gifts. Excited children trying to sleep so Santa can bring presents to good boys and girls…. The kitchen in the convent is clearing out. Sisters have been cooking all day and a group of us went in to do the dishes. A table is filled with cookies and fudge and fruit cake for our guests after Mass tonight (and the sisters too!).

All these years as we each turn the pages of the calendar Christmas after Christmas, our busyness makes us think that Christmas is something we bring about, something we produce, something we give each other, something we do for others or for God.

The ways of God, however, are always an unexpected reversal. Mary proclaimed in her song of praise the Magnificat that she knew it was the Lord, who was the Giver of all gifts, who had done great things in her. In awe at the unfolding mystery of God’s gift, Mary put herself at the service of all God had planned. This is Mary’s way of putting herself at God’s disposition. When it came time to give birth to her own Child who would sit on the Throne of David forever, she makes no attempt to orchestrate the perfect situation for his birth. She has no pretense of greatness for having said yes to the angel Gabriel and having given her body and soul as the home of God’s Son for nine months. She is waiting, watching, listening, serving, letting him lead. She lets Jesus give the gift.

Marian eyes. Have her eyes in these days as Advent melts into Christmas joy. Eyes that look to see what Jesus is accomplishing right in front of you. Eyes that transmit faith. Eyes that offer love and understanding. Eyes that can still experience wonder at the mystery of the birth of God in our midst, saving us.

Mary left behind her planned preparation for the birth of her baby, for the uncomfortable and probably dangerous trip to Bethlehem, trusting that God had a plan. She says to me, don’t hold too tightly onto your preparations and expectations. You will be called to your unexpected Bethlehem, and it is there that you will receive the gift of Jesus.

Rest from all the work you’ve done now. Christmas is here and it will be what it will be. Let Jesus in and see what he will do within you and through you.

My heart cries out with Mary: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

Loneliness is one of the greatest heart-pains people report when it comes to their relationship with others and with God.

We could look enviously at Mary and Joseph, the shepherds who could see Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem. Or the Magdalene. Peter and the apostles. The blind man on the side of the road calling for the Lord’s attention. Even Paul.

They could see and interact with Jesus. Seeing His eyes, being in His presence, even feeling His touch and hearing His voice…it must have been so easy to feel God’s love communicated through Jesus.

Jesus’ promise to Thomas that those are more blessed who believe without seeing doesn’t make Him feel any closer. Doesn’t satisfy our need to feel Jesus close in our hour of need.

One night, bowed low in the dark and yet familiar place of our convent chapel, I prayed. Jesus asks me, Can’t you see me? I am here. I have always been wherever you are.

Pages flipping. I know I’ll find the words Jesus said to someone else comforting. Someone. Else. He and I, a popular book of spirituality. Jesus on July 17, 1939 to Gabrielle Bossis: “Is it so difficult to talk with Me? Everything that interests you, every little detail of your life, tell me about it. I’ll listen with such attention and joy.”

Gently Jesus urges me to close the book…. Child, I spoke to her 75 years ago, but tonight I want to speak to you.

But why can’t I know. Hear. See.

I remember moments of deep relational presence for me. My 25th anniversary of profession. The success of a project that restored in me a sense of belonging. A graduation. A prayer experience. Relive the joy and gratitude. Feel the warmth of appreciation deep within. Jesus, I am making a heart-request. Can you show me where you were in these experiences?

I wait. Enter within myself.

I see you, Jesus. I see what I missed then. You were standing beside me, rejoicing in these little details of my life, events that meant so much to me. You stand there smiling as if you were personally giving me a very cool gift and wanted to see if I liked it. I feel you now next to me, Jesus. Are you there always?

“I call you my friends. I am with you always.” (Words of Jesus recorded at the Last Supper and at His ascension into heaven.)

And where were you when I was hurt? Child, I had made everything okay, before it even happened. Look at Me.

I shift a little bit closer. Maybe this is what C.S. Lewis meant when he said: “Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

Every detail. Every hope. Every sorrow. His. Only for His eyes. Offered to Him to see, to hold. to care for, to be with. With. The secret for enjoying the security of Jesus’ presence.

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Try this yourself. What event(s) in your life do you look back on as special evidence of God’s love and care for you? Relive them. Reexperience the gratitude and appreciation. The more you reconnect with memories that elicit gratitude and appreciation the more you will find satisfaction in your relationships with others and with God.

 

I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.

Psalm 77:11

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Why is it that God allows our hearts to break? That love could cause us such pain and suffering and yet survive and even thrive is a miracle. God’s own heart broke at the dawn of creation when we chose our own way to happiness. And since we have done so again and again. And Love? That Love, eternally multiplying magnificence of tenderness and care, has bent over us again and again, believing in our capacity to welcome his heart one day.

I think God knows how fragile we are, which is why he persists in knocking at the door of our hearts. Showing us the miracle of Love which alone can mend our own broken hearts.

Sunday. Again. Another story of a mass murder.

Just last week I prayed with the Manhattan truck attack. The people who died. The people left behind. Everyone who was hurt. Everyone. All of us. In one great lament.

Inside my heart I asked God Why?

And I seemed to hear God’s own immense wail of sorrow. Lamentation. Pain at seeing death snatching his children again. God’s tears gave me permission to shed my own. To unite my lamentation to his. To blend my agony with the divine agonizing cry of love that rises from the heart of Jesus. To melt my Why? into mystery. They are the fierce tears stronger than those of a mother who would throw herself in the way of danger to save her child. As Jesus has done for us.

Taking the long view of the violent situations that tear apart cities and hearts has brought me closer to the divine way of seeing things. Jesus died almost 2000 years ago, an anguished cry of love and mercy that was stronger than the evil that overshadows humanity with its power from creation to Christ’s second coming. A cry of agony for the sinners and the sinned against. Even as he died, the darkness couldn’t snuff out the light and the apostles fled in fear.

Jesus three-day-after Resurrection blares out one message: God has a plan, and that plan will be victorious over sin, evil, and death. That plan is bigger than the terrible acts of mass murder that shatter frightened hearts. That plan is greater than my sin and weakness. That plan is larger than politics, agendas, and organizations. That plan is stronger than ecclesial failures and brokenness.

And that plan, there is no derailing that plan.

Last night I listened to the statement of the Pastor’s wife at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. I was both moved and humbled. It is clear that in the midst of this evil, they as a community–as a common Body–remember that, even with a church building beyond repair and many of their congregation now gone, they are still church. All still one. Re-gathering, consoling and in reality re-membering one another. Evil carried but not absorbed.

Let love go before us, then, to tend to the broken hearts. Let wisdom light the way, calling down the Holy Spirit on all of us that we might see the plan, God’s plan, and find our way together once more.