Introduction to the fourth week of Advent
This week Advent draws to a close and we celebrate Christmas. If the incarnation tells us anything about God, it is that God so loved the world that he is forevermore intimately a part of the human condition. Our God is not aloof or unconcerned with our day-to-day affairs. To the contrary, God is with us now. This week's contributors find God active in many ways - through a poet's words, the greeting of students, the words of the Gospels and in experiences far and near. We will continue our daily reflections through Saturday, December 29th. How is God with you today?
Today's response is offered by:
Robert Cording
Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing
College of the Holy Cross
In Rainer Maria Rilke's Christmas letter (Letters to a Young Poet) to the anguished Mr. Kappus, who fears he has lost the faith of his childhood, Rilke instructs him to think of Christ "as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity, the one who will someday arrive, the ultimate fruit of the tree we are." Rilke is quite aware that, to Mr. Kappus, Christ has already been. But his point is that "everything that happens is again and again a beginning." I think of Rilke's letter almost every Advent season. If I imagine one axis of the cross as Christ's eternal agony, His will failing to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and the other axis as the eternal possibility of love, then each Advent becomes a continual beginning in which to build the love we yearn for, yet know mostly as missing in the world. Each Advent season I wait in the dark, hoping to learn, like Mary, to prepare a space in which Christ might come forth. Each Advent season I sing Come, O come Emmanuel, hoping to make possible Christ's fullest coming into existence, hoping to exist in Him, to be made whole by love I am too imperfect to bear.
Today's response is offered by:
Adam Musser '05
Teacher, Cristo Rey High School
Cleveland, OH
"Without poverty of spirit, there can be no abundance of God." - Oscar Romero
It is difficult not to note the disparity in my life between this year and last. One year ago I was returning from El Salvador where I mourned and celebrated the lives of the Jesuit martyrs who were assassinated there in 1989. I lived in Belize City as a Jesuit Volunteer and worked with youth in the Belize Central Prison.
This year I sit comfortably in Cleveland, teaching at the Cristo Rey high school here and spending this blessed time with my family. I own a car, have a cell phone, and drink good beer regularly. I am worlds apart from the person I was twelve months ago.
For me, the question is not whether we are aware of God's presence, but whether we are aware of God's abundant presence. For it is that magnificent abundance -the divine presence in all things- which we must notice in this time.
God is with us - that much is clear. Are we able, with the abundance of material distractions available to us in this place, to notice that God is abundantly with us? That, I think, is the question.
Today's response is offered by:
Michela Byrne '05
Jesuit Volunteer
Tacna, Peru
One of the greatest things about being a Jesuit Volunteer at Miguel Pro, the school where I teach, is the enormous hugs I receive each morning from my grammar school students as I walk through the front gate. However, never have I received as hearty a welcome as the day a few weeks ago when we returned from our last retreat. Even my normally stand-offish high school students greeted me in perfectly practiced English "We missed you, Miss." The gesture made me realize: to be missed we first have to be loved. At one point when I was really struggling as a Jesuit Volunteer, feeling like I couldn't connect with Peruvians in the same way that I connected with significant people from home, someone asked me if I loved my students and if my students loved me. I said, yes I think that we do love each other. And then, she asked: "Isn't that enough?" Where there is love, there is God.
Today's response is offered by:
Brett McLaughlin, nSJ '04
Novice of the Society of Jesus
Syracuse, NY
Jesus is with me in a daily journey through the Gospels. He invites me to see how His life of ministry is not just a recording, but a part of my life today. Jesus wants to involve me in every passage. Often, I am struck by how He seems to address exactly what is happening in my life. He invites, instructs, and empowers me to love and to listen to Him more carefully, so I can more deeply appreciate His genuine care for others. We are all called to similar care.
The grace of such an encounter with Jesus enlightens and inspires me to a greater awareness of my brokenness, and of His desire and ability to heal and hearten me in such a way that enables a genuine experience of reconciliation and renewal.
Jesus grants us the vision and invitation to see the Kingdom of God unfolding. In so many places, I have found such great sharing, generosity, and concern of people for each other. I have grown so much in believing that the Holy Spirit is at work in so many Christians.
Today's response is offered by:
Alison Quinn '06
Graduate Student, Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA
This morning I saw God from my beach towel. I witnessed a mother, equipped with sneakers, watching as her two little boys frolicked through the ocean waves...then into a nearby sandcastle...then after a flock of nearby seagulls...then down the coast after a speedy black lab...
She was alert, calling their names and pleading for them to return when having gone too far. She approached one child and bent over to pick him up. He chucked sand into her face and escaped. With a weary smile, she finally swept him up in her arms, took him back to her towel and slathered on sunblock, barely rubbing the cream into his skin before he was off again. I saw God in this woman who so patiently watched her children, allowed them to run, to jump, and to explore their world, yet called them back to her haven of safety and love.