Abbey-Roads2

A little feast before Christmas.

I expect we can think of this feast as a commemoration of how the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph made ready to travel to Bethlehem for the Birth of Christ.  The feast is often recalled in the custom of Las Posadas, as practiced in Hispanic cultures, commemorating Our Lady’s joyful anticipation of the Birth of Jesus.  Las Poasadas  is a devotion reenacting the journey to Bethlehem, a variation of the novena for Christmas, which began on the 16th of December.  (I think a few Carmelite monasteries continue to observe this day with a votive Mass.  It was in Carmel where I first became aware the feast.)

The votive Mass of “Our Lady of Expectation” is theologically enlightening and spiritually enriching for the time of Advent and Christmas. With the entrance antiphon, the Church prays with the prophet for the coming of the Just One from heaven that the earth may be ready to welcome the Savior: “Send victory like a dew, you heavens, and let the clouds rain down the just. Let the earth open for salvation to spring up” (Is 45:8). In the opening prayer, the Church offers the prayer to God through Mary’s intercession: “O God who wished that your Word would take the flesh from the womb of the Virgin as announced by the Angel and whom we confess to be the true Mother of God, may we be helped by her intercession.” - Fr. Marian Zalecki, OSPPE

Don Marco also has a lovely post for the feast of the Expectation.  (He always beats me to these things.)

“I will not let you go until you bless me.” - Genesis 32:27

Sometimes people can pray for years and years for a certain intention; perhaps to gain control over a predominant fault, for the conversion of a relative, for the healing of a disease or illness, or to overcome an addiction, and so on.  In these cases, especially when there is great struggle, either between depression and hope, sin and repentance, confidence and doubt - whatever the case may be - it can often seem as if God is refusing to hear our prayer.  Yet the soul continues to implore God’s help - I believe this is when one’s prayer can seem to be a “wrestling with God”.  I’m also fairly certain there is a deeper issue at stake, much deeper than the obvious intention of the person praying, concerning the prayer’s very salvation.

I’m convinced that this wrestling, or rather, our perseverance in prayer, is essential to our sanctification.  It is the motive which keeps us clinging to God in hope.  In fact, it is certain that all of the virtues are strengthened in and through the struggles we encounter in life.  The story of Jacob’s nocturnal wrestling with the angel, may image for us this struggle, demonstrating how intimately engaged, intertwined as it were,with God the soul is - even in a state of crises.  Despite the intense struggle, Jacob refused to let go, insisting, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

The little Jesus likes to wrestle.

Maybe, for some of us, our struggles, our failures, our impairments, or our intense desire for the conversion of another, become the only means by which God can hold our attention and keep us clinging to him.  If all of our prayers were answered as we thought they should be, when we felt they should be, we might easily drift away from God in our complacency.  More importantly, we may not have acquired valuable self-knowledge nor experienced the mercy of God; perhaps more significantly, we may have missed opportunities to grow in confidence and love.

I often  think that the little Jesus likes to wrestle.  With some souls, such as little Therese, he seemed content to be asleep, apparently ignorant of her desires and aspirations, as if to test her patience and devotion.  With others, he delighted in showing them  their miseries in order that they might grow in self-knowledge and humility - in the light of his mercy of course.  In whatever manner he choses to “play” with us, he always does so for the good of our souls… even in the darkest night, and even when he permits us to be wounded.  While he delights to hear us say - “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

And sometimes, if we listen very closely to the silence in the night, we may hear his little voice whisper, “Since he clings to me in love, I will free him…” - Psalm 90:14

[Art: "St. John of God" - Cuzco School.]