Embracing Mystery

Image: Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner

 

Christmas is upon us. How is your spirit? What is stirring in your soul?

 

Over these weeks of Advent preparation, I have been surprised and perplexed by how much I have experienced doubt. Doubt in myself, doubt in others, doubt in our world getting any better, doubt that God wants anything to do with us humans. All this shakes me to my core given a faith that has been the ground and source of animated hope throughout my life.

With fear and trembling then I reflected on the designated Annunciation gospel reading for Advent Sunday 4.* Mary in all her ordinariness and poverty is visited by the angel Gabriel with an announcement that she is to conceive in her womb through the Holy Spirit and bear the Son of God. This is a story that in the past has heartened and emboldened my faith. Now in my disquieted state I questioned. On the surface the story is preposterous.

I kept reading and pondering and surrendering to God. I am not sure then what enabled me to see and hear in a new light, but it happened. Something moved in me beyond my doubt. I found myself in the depths of prayer echoing Mary’s response, Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.

Mary is every woman and every man who comes face to face with Mystery and does not try to explain it away but honors it with all humility and amazement. We stand in the presence of the unexpected and inexplicable and trust that our human complexity and not knowing are a portal for God’s activity.

The invitation always is to be attentive and open to divine revelation. Through the inbreaking of the Spirit we are asked to bear impossible love to the lowliest places in ourselves and others and into the most difficult and intractable situations in our communities and the world. God is with us.