Blessed Sacrament
Happy watching and waiting! Today begins the season of Advent, one of my favorites of the liturgical year – perfect for stillness and quietude. Remember to take time during this season to slow down. Take some time to sit before the Blessed Sacrament in the middle of your busy day or give Jesus an hour of your week to sit during Eucharistic Adoration at your parish. Remember how saddened Jesus was when his disciples couldn’t stay awake during his agony in the garden. “Could you not watch one hour with me,” he said. (Mt 26:40) He’s probably saying the same to us.
This Friday was the first Friday of the month and I spent a few hours in adoration at my parish. We are blessed to have all night adoration on the first Friday of every month. So there I sat, with Jesus, for a few hours – sitting, praying, reading and writing. As I sat, just past midnight, I decided to open the missalette to Sunday’s readings and do Lectio Divina.
The first reading for this weekend is from Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b, 64:2-7 – it starts off talking about how God is our Father and asking why He let’s us wander. It continues with how sinful we are and how angry He is. “Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.”
There’s that reason to HOPE again! No matter how sinful we are, He’s “got” this! Those words from Isaiah stopped me in my tracks. I read them over and over with a smile because it reminded me of how God truly IS in control of everything. Answered prayer, unanswered prayer, suffering, joy – it’s all there to teach us, to mold us into the people he would have us become and to help us recognize His Presence around us. In other words, the good, the bad and the ugly……..there He is in the midst of it all. Wow! What a comfort.
I continued to read the reading for Sunday and finally came to the Gospel, taken from Mark 13:33-37. I guess you could say it was appropriate for the season: Advent waiting and the message: WATCH! “Be watchful, be alert” said Jesus to His disciples. I’ve heard many homilies on this Gospel and the message is usually the same – we don’t know when “our time” will come or when Jesus will come again so we should never lose our focus, we should always be prepared to enter the Kingdom. We should always be working toward an increase in holiness, growing in grace and being ready to meet Him when He comes again.
In the past, my own understanding and interpretation of this Gospel and the many homilies I’ve heard proposed that same message. However, after reading it this week, my interpretation was a bit different. It may have to do with my focus on contemplation these days, but I think it also has to do with the connection I made to the first reading. You see, if God is the potter, we the clay, I think we are being called to watchfulness and awareness of Him. “Be watchful and alert” for His Presence in the here and now and how He is working to purify us.
In other words, I think this Gospel is telling us to be on the look out for God’s action and presence in our lives. To recognize it, surrender to it and to open our hearts to it. Basically, go with the flow of the potter’s wheel and don’t resist. We all know what happens to the clay when it encounters resistance! Surrendering to God’s action and presence in our lives is the only way we will be able to experience true union with Him in this life. The best part of this message is that we don’t have to wait until we die or for Him to come again to experience true union with Him.
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