First Sunday of Advent – 2021
There used to be a Chinese curse which went, “May you live in interesting times!” It is hard to know whether we live under this curse, but we certainly live in a time of great change. As Pope Francis himself remarked, it is not even that we live in an era of change, but that we live in a change of era. And it is this that make the times even more interesting.
The hardest challenge for us in a situation of change, is to listen deeply, to be alert for both the dangers and the possibilities. In fact, the full Chinese proverb goes, “May you live in interesting times when danger and possibility exist in equal tension.” It is not easy to wait with all that is occurring, especially in the midst of all our needs, to take the fullest picture into account and slowly but surely to discern where the most appropriate pathways lay, where the next best stepping stone might lay. Most often our anxiety won’t allow us this space, this quiet.
Yet, the future comes to us through a discernment which is full of care, patience, and quiet expectation. When we can approach our situation with this attitude of mind and heart, then we make a friend of our needs. They are not our enemy. In fact, we begin to realise that our needs can be the mother of creativity, of growth, of something new coming to birth in us. We must approach our needs then, with a sense of attentiveness and reverence and expectation rather than with fear, defensiveness, or despair. We are to sift through all that is happening and to try and discern where and how the marks of the Kingdom might be presenting themselves in and through all that is happening just as they are. This is why the Gospel calls us to be always alert, to live with awareness.
In the poetic style of his day Jesus speaks of a time of great change coming: an old order passing, and a new order being introduced. It was the literary style of the people of his time to describe such pervasive change in apocalyptic terms, i.e., in terms of upheaval and catastrophe. But when they write of such upheaval, they are primarily talking not about what is going to happen in the future. They are talking about something that has already occurred in our encounter with Jesus. The life of Jesus, his Death and Resurrection, have brought about the most radical possibility for us, yes even in our needs. An older order has been destroyed; a new order has come into being. Something new has been born in our midst, yes even in the midst of our needs. We are given a freedom already to delight in life, to care more fully for each other and to create beauty in the midst of our needs. It is a word that opens for us new possibility even in the midst of what might be extraordinary limitation. We can celebrate even in the face of frustration, distortion, or limitation. The invitation to reconciliation has transformed the drudgery of alienation, justice has transformed the harshness of injustice, atonement has transformed the cruelty of arrogance, the warmth of acceptance has overcome the coldness of bitterness, reverence has overwhelmed exploitation; mercy has come into our midst.
And what is this mercy? For Pope Francis mercy is this quality at the heart of our experience of Jesus that takes each other into our care, by which we listen to one another attentively, approach each other’s situation with respect and truth, and accompany one another on the journey of reconciliation.[1] It calls for a certain tenderness, what Pope Francs calls a “revolution of tenderness.”[2] In a reflection on Mary, the mother of Jesus, he put it this way:
We are invited to ‘leave home’ and to open our eyes and hearts to others. Our revolution comes about through tenderness, through the joy which always becomes closeness and compassion, and leads us to get involved in, and to serve, the life of others. … Our faith, ‘calls us out of our house’, to visit the sick, the prisoner and to those who mourn. It makes us able to laugh with those who laugh, and rejoice with our neighbours who rejoice. Like Mary, we want to be a Church who serves, who leaves home and goes forth, who goes forth from her chapels, her sacristies, in order to accompany life, to sustain hope, to be a sign of unity. Like Mary, Mother of Charity, we want to be a Church who goes forth to build bridges, to break down walls, to sow seeds of reconciliation. Like Mary, we want to be a Church who can accompany all those ‘pregnant’ situations of our people, committed to life, to culture, to society, not washing our hands but rather walking with our brothers and sisters. All together, serving, helping.[3]
This Advent we are called by the gospel to be attentive and discerning both to where this is already taking place but also to how we can make this come about. We open our hearts first to ourselves to discover the tenderness with which God holds each of us; we open our hearts to one another to show that tenderness to one another. It does not take much. A smile, a word, a thoughtful gesture. Each time we show mercy however we demonstrate the change that the life of Jesus has brought into our world; each time we show mercy we bring to birth that life. The birth of Jesus is not just our celebration, therefore. It is our responsibility.
We live in interesting times. May this not be a curse for us, but instead a blessing – a blessing for us, a blessing for those whose lives we touch.
[1] Pope Francis, Address to the Parish Priests of the Diocese of Rome, 6 March 2014
[2] Evangelii gaudium, n. 88
[3] Pope Francis, Address at Shrine of El Cobre, Cuba, 23 September 2015
