First Week of Advent: Waiting with Joy
For most of us, waiting is hard. Whether we are late for work at a long traffic light; waiting for a loved one to get well; waiting for a call back for new job or whatever process we find ourselves in, it can be painful, not joyful.
So many processes of life require patient waiting. Once I asked my dad how he was so patient while waiting for mom to talk to all her friends after Sunday mass and her reminded me of the fact that the Latin root of patience is patio, to suffer. Waiting often requires virtuous detachment from our own will and control and accepting God’s will and timing as part of His loving providence in every circumstance.
Waiting can also be a spiritually purifying experience so in this time that we prepare for Christ’s coming, Mary is a source of strength in our trials of patient endurance. Mary must have been astounded after the Annunciation! She had eagerly and prayerfully waited for the coming of the messiah and now, she herself is mother of that Savior.
The song “Breath of Heaven” by Amy Grant is about Mary’s journey to Bethlehem proposing she may have been “frightened by the load” and wondered “if a wiser one should have had my place.” But in prayer for strength to the Holy Spirit she simply offers “all I am to the mercy of your plan.”
Mary’s world was one of faith, listening and docility to the Word of God. Perhaps she meditated on the words of Jeremiah” The days are coming, says the Lord when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel.” (Jer 33) Or, “You are God my savior, and for you, I wait all day” (Ps 25:4).
Therefore the words of the Angel Gabriel “Nothing is impossible for God”took root deeply in her soul, therefore all her waiting was transformed by her purposeful and intentional living and waiting in God’s presence. Kairos, or God’s time of grace reigned more than Chronos or quantitative time. “Embracing God’s salvific will with a full heart and impeded by no sin, she devoted herself totally as a handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of her Son, serving the mystery of redemption. (Lumen Gentium, no. 56)”
Mary’s waiting was not in vain or fretful, but fruitful. Immediately after the Angel told her of her cousin’s pregnancy, she went with joyful missionary spirit to care for Elizabeth. We can imagine her willingly taking on all of her daily chores and weaving the swaddling bands that would wrap Jesus on his arrival. Her intentionality to whatever the Father asked each day gave meaning to all hours of waiting for Jesus’ coming.
Waiting can be grueling and we all have our default mechanisms that take us away from the joyful waiting on the Lord. Mary waited with her spirit nourished on the truth that “God makes all things beautiful in its time”
Mary, be with me in my joyful waiting for the coming of Jesus once again into my heart.
