Third Sunday of Advent: Rejoice always...but...

“Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.
In all circumstances give thanks, for this
is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

--1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24

Working my way slowly through the Old Testament has offered me many little and wonderful benefits. For instance, standing in line for confession last night… I was standing there anxious as always. Even at 58 I worry over speaking my sin in the hearing of another. I was at one of those Advent Reconciliation events and so there were several priests to choose from and I simply got into what looked like a reasonably short line (there were two on this side of the church –one longer and one shorter… I chose the shorter) and stood there –waiting—wondering what I would say.  I got out a little pad of paper and started making a list of my sins. By the time I got to the second page, I realized that the person standing behind me could probably read everything I was writing. So, I closed the notebook and capped my pen and began looking around, watching for the people coming out of the confessional. I was wondering if the priest was giving out hard penance? I figured I might be able to tell by the look in the eyes. Was he a kind old experienced priest? Was he a gentle naïve young first timer?  Would he be sympathetic to my situation? my sins? or would he suddenly blurt out: At your age!!  Or would it be one of those wonderful out of town priests from Poland that can’t understand a word you say, so they just listen, forgive everything and tell you to pray three Hail Marys.  (I love going to confession to priests who don’t speak English!)

 A woman came out and smiled. The next person went in; the line moved and I saw the name of the priest. Not him!  And suddenly that other line didn’t look so bad. I could just change lines. Just go over there. Maybe I should act like I was going to the bathroom, and just slip away and find a different line on the other side of the church. Or maybe I should just give up. It was a sign! Literally –with a name on it! I should just go home. I didn’t belong here anyway.

But, instead of getting out of line I opened my Bible. I was going to just read a little as I waited. Hoping it would distract me from the sense that the lady behind me was standing a little further back from me now that she knew the state of my soul. I was going to read a psalm or something like that, but instead I opened it to where I had left off that morning: Deuteronomy 8:7, and I began to read and this is exactly what I read:

“But, the Lord your God is bringing you into a fine country, a land of streams and springs, of waters that well up from the deep in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines, of figs, of pomegranates, a land of olives, of oil, of honey, a land where you will eat bread without stint, where you will want nothing…”

And I felt my knees buckle and my chin tremble and my eyes fill with tears. It was truly the voice of God speaking to me, there, in that line, as I waited –fearful, anxious, self-conscious, wanting nothing more than to just turn and run away. And to those feelings, the Lord said:

“But…”

Do you see? That’s what happens when you give yourself a chance to listen to God.  He says to you: But…

I was ready to give up, and the Lord said, “But…” and that is actually what made all the difference (Thank you, Mr. Frost).  What I am trying to say here is this: I think if I had been reading a different translation of the Bible, if I had opened the Bible to a different spot, if I had started reading at a different verse even, I might have walked away from that line and gone home without going to confession. I probably would have been ashamed of myself, but sadly I would have probably gotten over that much sooner than I would like to admit.

And yet I was reading that particular Bible that night and opened it to that particular verse because the morning before I had been reading that particular page and because the first word I read was: But… I felt there was nothing random about it. The words on that page spoke to me. They felt as if they were actually responding to me in that moment.  They said: Yes. You can turn around and walk out of here and no one will stop you and no one will hold it against you; But… here is what I have planned for you, so please stay.

            This Sunday (the third Sunday of Advent) one of our readings encourages us to Rejoice always. Give thanks in every situation.  That is a hard, hard teaching for some of us.  We have very difficult situations in our lives and we struggle just to keep going, just to stay in the line.  How can we be grateful for an incurably ill child? For a car that won’t start –again? For a flood that takes away everything we owned, everything we loved, and leaves us feeling lost?  How do we rejoice in that situation? How do we feel grateful for that?

            I don’t have an answer. But… I think I know where to find one.

Praying for hunger: Corpus Christi & the food of God

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.”
--John 6:53

 “Brothers and sisters: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not
a participation in the blood of Christ?  The bread that we break, is it
not a participation in the body of Christ?  Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”
--1 Corinthians 10:16-17

What does it mean to eat the flesh of the Son of Man? What does it mean to participate in the blood of Christ?  What does it mean to hunger after the body of Christ?

Here in the 21st century, as we struggle with all the issues of our day, how do we live out this calling? How do we truly participate in the blessing of His blood? His body? Those are questions that are key to the solemnity of Corpus Christi. We are called on this day to give special attention and adoration to the sacramental presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.  And the church has selected these two readings from Corinthians and John's Gospel to help us remember that we are called to participate in the blessing that is the body and blood of Christ.  And so, some churches will have processions and set aside time for adoration of the exposed Eucharist: the body of Christ. It is a call we must not ignore, because it is a call for us to grow not only in our faith but in our hunger for God.

The first reading for today's mass is the one that spoke to me today.  The Old Testament reading  from Deuteronomy. And especially this passage:

“…He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you
with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers…” (8:3)

In my New Jerusalem Bible, this verse reads:

"He humbled you, He made you feel hunger..."

I think that reading it I was reminded of poor Abram (in Genesis) being called out of his homeland and away from his kinsfolk and lead to a foreign land. Humbled and probably feeling a bit afflicted by God asking so much of him. And, of course we see the same kind of reaction from the Jews wandering in the desert for 40 years, complaining to Moses that He led them out of Egypt (where at least they had food and shelter) only to let them die of hunger in the desert.

  When God leads us away from the familiar and the safe, He leads us into a kind of hungering --and certainly it is  (as far as I can tell) always a humbling experience. God leads us out of our safe space and allows us to be afflicted with hunger, if not for actual food, then for safety and security, for friends and family, for comfort and reassurance.  And God lets us be afflicted by this hunger, not to test us or prove to us He's the boss, but in order that He might feed us with a bread unknown to us and to our parents. 

What is this bread that we do not know? This manna? That is my question?  And how do we get it? I think there is a clue in a famous scene in John’s Gospel.  When the apostles return to find Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well, they offer Him something to eat, but Jesus tells them He has food to eat that they don’t know about.  And when they are puzzled by that, He explains:

“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete His work…”
–John 4:34

I wonder if that doesn’t tell us something about Heavenly food, about manna, and also about the importance and the work of prayer. We tend to think about prayer as a way of filling our tank. We go to God in prayer so He can fill our spiritual tank up for the work we have to do, or the world we have to face, etc. etc.  We go to God because we need grace and we have a spiritual longing for the divine.  I certainly don’t deny any of that.  But, I also wonder if the paradox of prayer is that instead of filling us up, the real work of prayer is to empty us out. And that by emptying us it prepares us to be filled by the real food of God’s blessing; the real manna; that food that Jesus is talking about.  We go to prayer not to be filled, but to be emptied, so we can be made hungry for  the will of God, the work of God.  To be made ready for this meal, we have to be humbled, and perhaps a sign of this humility, of the process of being humbled is a growing hunger, a longing for something we cannot achieve on our own; something we cannot even imagine for ourselves: a food unknown to us and to our parents.

Like Abram, lead to a strange land, when we kneel in prayer we are emptied of all our earthly resources, all our powers and glories and achievements; humbled; we are emptied so that God can fill us with grace and make of us a blessing to the world –That is how we participate in the work of God. We pray not to be filled up, but to be emptied, so we can be fed by the work of God.
Want to know what work God has for you? Empty yourself in prayer. Let God afflict you with hunger through prayer. And then let God feed you with the food that Christ spoke of: the Work of God. 

Are you listening, Mr. Sutter?  Put down those chips and that bowl of dip, something better awaits you.