The Great Wait
Peasant Times-Dispatch Issue 27
When you approach the Tabernacle remember that He has been awaiting you for twenty centuries.
- St Josemaria Escriva
The Way
St. Josemaria Escriva wrote a book called “The Way,” which is 999 quotes about the life of faith. St. Josemaria Escriva founded the order Opus Dei, and I return to his quotes frequently for my own reference. This is #537.
Life Is Real
It can’t have escaped your notice that we slipped, like a thief in the night, into Advent. A new liturgical year, a season of penance and preparation. I love our penitential seasons. The music1 of lent and advent strike a different tone, the subject matter is different. It helps me remember that all this, everything we are doing, is real and we are worshipping God2.
My life has struck a discordant tone with the preparatory ethos of Advent. I often wonder what the purpose of my life is. There’s an old ‘meme’ featuring a sinking ship and it is captioned3: “Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.” I have told myself that if I ever wrote a memoir it would be titled “A good example of what not to do,” in line with this theme. It’s a funny joke but also a deeply misguided way of viewing our lives. The mistake I, in my personal life, and this joke both make is in thinking that a purposeful life is measured in some outcome. I’ve been on a Longfellow kick, so I return frequently to his “Psalm of Life”4:
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
That is to say, life is not measured in enjoyment or sorrow. A happy life free from suffering can be just as purposeless as a life full of suffering and compunction.
Longfellow suggests a remedy:
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present5!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
That is to say, don’t look to the future for answers, be it a future full of enjoyment or full of sorrow. Don’t look to the past for answers, it’s enjoyments and sorrows are complete, done, and buried. Live in the present, mindful of God, mindful of our own conscience (our “heart”), and do what can be done “now”6.
At this point you might be wondering what all this has to do with St. Josemaria Escriva’s quote above. My spiritual life has been a little more laborious than I’d like it to be. I have a routine of prayers I pray every day, and some days it comes easily and some days it comes with difficulty. Some Sundays it is a chore to go to Mass, I do not feel celebratory, and I sit there in a fog while Mass happens around me. But on rare occasions when I can remember St. Escriva’s wisdom, I can look at the Eucharist and remember that God is with us7. That not only is God with us but He has been waiting patiently in the Tabernacle, in every tabernacle, across all time and across all space, for you and for me. Why would God wait for us? What perspective does that offer us? How does that relate to despair?
Because God is a loving father. And the red Candle next to the tabernacle is the light that the Father keeps on as He waits for his prodigal children to return home. Going to Church, praying before the sacrament, be it Mass or outside of Mass, is to return home.
And it’s not some generalized, royal “you”. It is you, specifically. God has known from the beginning that you would be in this world and He took on flesh for you, He suffered and died as if you were the only soul in the world, and He humbles Himself to take the appearance of bread and wine so that, twenty centuries after His incarnate birth, he could meet you in person.
The measure of life is not enjoyment, and not sorrow—but God can fill our lives with divine Love. It reminds me of the way a child with scraped knees may fly to their parents for a consoling embrace: God’s love may not relieve you of your wounds moment to moment, but it makes them a little more tolerable.
Objection
A skeptic, cynic, or scoundrel may read all this and offer the following objection:
“That all sounds very neat and trite, Scoot, but it offers no real guidance for resolving real problems that ail real people. If I am laboring under heavy crosses, does the knowledge that God awaits me in the tabernacle change that?”
I answer this objection with another quote, this time from Don Colacho:
Every burden soon oppresses us, if we do not have Jesus as our Cyrenean. (#2,388)
The burdens of life are real and must be resolved. Many burdens are made heavier by trying to carry the weight of future burdens “now”, when nothing can be done for them. The fact is that prayer is the first and most effective recourse of the suffering soul. Christ awaits us in the tabernacle, first so that we might come to know him, second so that we might make an offering of our suffering. This doesn’t promise to make suffering go away, but if we can release our grip on our own suffering then God can do something glorious with it. We have to detach8 from desired outcomes (remember: Not enjoyment, and not sorrow/ is our destined end or way)—and surrender to God’s work in our lives.
Trite clichés resolve nothing, but a spiritual disposition of openness and of love can do a great deal.
Leave The Light On
The peasant is concerned a great deal with the here and now. Is it raining, or is it sunny? How must my plans adjust to present circumstances? What are my priorities? Our list of priorities ought to include returning frequently to the sacraments, as there is no higher good in our mortal lives. A relationship with God doesn’t mean life will be perpetually joyous, but it does mean that we can put ourselves at God’s disposal. And sometimes that might mean we suffer, sometimes that might mean great and tremendous joy! It’s the disposition that gives us purpose and meaning.
It is, presently, Advent. It is good to remember that God has been waiting for us in the tabernacle for twenty centuries, that He is there for us right now and we can choose right now to seek him out and bring our lives to Him. Advent, though, is the season of the liturgical year where we wait for God. The world holds it’s breath as we await the nativity of our savior and King. God waits for us with patience, with the light on, ready to embrace us. This advent, if only this one time of year, can we return that favor?
Thank you for reading! God bless!
AJPM
It feels easy to forget that Worship is both sent AND received. God receives our Advent prayers, I can only hope, with fondness.
From the aptly named “Despair dot com”
I say all this realizing it is little consolation for those afflicted by despair. Please—keep reading. I can’t cure my own despair, much less yours—but I can offer perspective, which I hope adds a mustard seed of hope in whatever else our lives may be offering.
O come, O come Emmanuel
Lovely reminder. I used to give a copy of that poem to my graduating seniors every year.