Incarnation

Carved wooden altar—wood of manger;

Gold glimmers tabernacle—golden straw.

Stare anew: the sight becomes a stranger

As the piercing star the shepherds saw.

Breath of oxen—breath of God's own life

Exhaled in layers of dust and grime—

There daily work and pain and strife

Did long await His bursting into time.

His two bright eyes stare, imploring

Hearts sheltered, cold, and dim,

Even as we come to kneel, adoring

God in flesh—blind to sight of Him

Who comes to break our shroud of fears,

Of dreams too small, to catch our tears

In tiny hands outstretched. He smiles

To see those weighted down with trials

Stop for one brief moment, darkly gaze

With blank stare at the brightest blaze

Hid in swaddling clothes, flesh to give

To all: to teach us, newborn, to live.

 

Flesh to Flesh

In the afterglow of that great solemnity of the Annunciation in which we celebrate the singular most important event in the whole course of history, the Incarnation, it is the flesh that provides food to ponder (no pun intended).  For it is to our mortal flesh that Christ draws our attention by the hypostatic union—God uniting Himself with mankind.

It is so easy to forget what a good thing the flesh is.  However, when God created the world, what He said of it was that it was good.

Yet we experience such suffering in our flesh that we forget its goodness.  Whether we suffer the emotional pain of the loss of someone dear to us, the physical aches of growing old, the daily weariness of our monotonous work, or simply a seemingly source-less depression, we naturally fall back on a response of hope.  We are made to be creatures of hope.  Thus we long for the day when we shall no longer suffer these things.  We may thereby begin to look condescendingly on this mortal coil that keeps us from the glories of heaven, especially if we struggle with the concupiscence of the flesh.

Despite a hatred of the body that can arise subconsciously in a thousand different ways, one startling fact remains: God waits for us physically in the Blessed Sacrament.  We may forget the great privilege of that Presence with us when we cannot see Him face to face as we long to.  Yet so blessed is that Sacrament that the angels envy us for being able to receive It.

God didn't become man so that He could fill the gap between now and heaven.  He became man because He wants to be united with us now, today, through our bodies and His body given up for us upon the cross, but first given to us through the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

Henri Nouwen speaks beautifully of our desire for that meeting of God through our flesh: 

You are looking for ways to meet Jesus.  You are trying to meet him not only in your mind but also in your body.  You seek his affection, and you know that this affection involves his body as well as yours.  He became flesh for you so that you could encounter him in the flesh and receive his love in the flesh.

Somehow I am finding this message come to me in so many different ways lately. Its ubiquity inclines me to consider its importance for a society so pleasure-oriented as ours, for pleasure is focused ultimately on satisfying the needs of the body. Of course no pleasure satisfies. Always we need more. The desire remains and grows for more and more and more and more.... Because the desire is for something deeper. The desire is for God. It is a desire to meet Him in our flesh.

But something remains in you that prevents this meeting, Henri Nouwen continues. Somehow there is always something that keeps us back. We throw up all sorts of walls to avoid that encounter.

Several weeks ago, I went with a friend to an empowering workshop for prayer leaders. The workshop leader demonstrated the power of intercessory prayer by asking someone to come forward who wanted healing. A man came forward who had one leg shorter than the other. As they prayed over him at first nothing happened. Then it was that the leader asked whether there was something that might prevent him from receiving that healing and so they prayed for his intentions for spiritual healing of pride for which he had asked initially. Then—I heard, although I did not see it with my own eyes—his leg became as long as the other.

So often we want healing. We go to doctors wanting to be cured, trying every treatment. Even if we come to the Divine Physician we may not receive the healing we desire. The question is always: why?

I found an answer at that workshop. I can't say that it is always true, but it may very well be so. For we mortal creatures are not mere bodies like cars to be fixed at the mechanic but a complex union of body and soul with the physical and psychological impacting the spiritual and vice versa. Every act has its effect for better or for worse.

There is so much to say on this subject, but I will end with a simple injunction from Nouwen:

Do not despair, thinking that you cannot change yourself after so many years. Simply enter into the presence of Jesus as you are and ask him to give you a fearless heart where he can be with you. You cannot make yourself different. Jesus came to give you a new heart, a new spirit, a new mind, and a new body. Let him transform you by his love and so enable you to receive his affection in your whole being.

Surprise

Today I had the absolutely splendid experience of surprise in so many ways.  I had forgotten how delightful surprises are and what joy they bring.

I knew that I had been struggling and that I was becoming weighted down, but I did not realize quite how much dryness I was experiencing until I received the surprising gift of consolation.  Somehow the dryness always comes upon us slowly.  We think we are doing well, joyfully facing life with all of its challenges, taking care of ourselves and striving to be the best people we can be.  Then slowly, bit by bit, the feelings subside without our quite realizing it.

When I think of surprise, I always think of Chesterton's play of that name.  There are some particularly striking portions from that play that talk about our desire for surprise:

POET. Oh, my God, what am I? Mud out of the highway soiling your carpets; a rag blown over the wall. But will you let me speak one moment for all the ragged people on the road, the truth that your officers do not tell you; what I know out of the very mouths of the poor of God?

PRINCESS. What in the world do they want?

POET. They want surprise. They do not want sufficiency or security. They want surprise. They do not want regular wages. They want irregular wealth. You say they can always find a pig at the pig-trough and ale in the ale-cask. If ever, one fine morning, they found the pig in the ale-cask and could drink ale out of the pig-trough—they would think they were in a fairy tale.

Is this not so?  We think that we want security.  We think that we want what we want.  Yet who has ever been happy with receiving exactly what he asks for?  At least not happy for long.  Always we move on to the next thing that we want, the next thing that will fill the aching emptiness in our heart.

Everyone wants the surprise of winning the lottery or some rich relative to appear and bequeath us some vast fortune.  It is not just that we want the money, but we want the surprise.

There is something ingrained deep in our hearts that makes us desire surprise.  I find it particularly fitting today to think of surprise because of it being the Solemnity of the Annunciation, the Incarnation, which is the greatest surprise of all.  For what greater surprise could there be than that God should become Man?  He remains the God of surprises, answering our prayers when we least expect them and bestowing upon us beautiful gifts we never expected, ever moving in new and surprising ways throughout our lives.