Spirituality of the Readings
Gifts
I have a new watch, an inexpensive one.
The old one had worn out. This new one had something I like very much, a second hand. I can watch the seconds tick by and I can “time” anything I want to.
Who wants to time things?
We will miss the present by looking backward or forward too much.
Well I do, especially when I get caught by a traffic light that changes to red just as I pull within a half a block. I glance at my wrist to see just how long the light sits on red. Some of them last—listen to this—a minute and fifteen seconds!
Imagine having to sit with nothing to do when you are late and in a hurry, with a mechanical device deciding for an entire minute and a quarter the second when you are allowed to go on!
As you can see, I need to put on some patience.
The Second Reading for Sunday says it this way:
See the farmer await the yield of the soil.
He watches it in winter and in spring rain.*
The farmer is attentive and tolerant because crops do not come up in a day. He has learned patience through many seasons.
How about those of us who are not farmers? How do we “put on” patience?
I think there are two parts to the answer.
First, I have noticed that when I am being impatient I am also failing to notice what is happening in the present time. I am stuck in the future worrying about what will occur and how to make it happen; about where I am supposed to be by now; and how the light will not let me go.
And a lot of us reside in the past instead of the present. We re-hash mistakes we made and finally think of a retort that would have topped someone's nasty remark, and so on.
The present moment is the only one we actually live in. The precious goodness of God makes everything exist right now, not tomorrow or yesterday, which are only memories or projections. We will miss the present by looking backward or forward too much.
Second, we need to recall that God makes the future safe. God has promised that, in ways we cannot understand, the crooked will be made straight. Our gnarled lives will be filled with goodness.
Patience is really a way of remembering the constant love of God, no matter how frightening or disconcerting the future may seem or may actually be. We need to slow down, look around, and live.
Think about Mary’s “be it done unto me,” her lifelong daily prayer, her nine months, her place at the cross. Notice that, when the angel gave her the annunciation, she did not demand guarantees and full details. She relied on God's love. She waited.
And, the Second Person of the Trinity, alive to earth’s ways, waited until it was time to come into the world as Jesus. Then when he sensed that he was hungry, he suckled at his mother's breast, burping only when the occasion presented itself, not before. And think of his years of being just a carpenter day after day. God's beloved, making a chair!
But that is Advent.
Christ is with you. His presence needs to grow.
Just open. Watch for the signs.
Patience, people.
John Foley, SJ
**From Saint Louis University