Psalm 112:1-10
This time of the year is marked with noises and
lights. They are worldly ones to promote commercialism and consumerism. The
noises have nothing to do with the voice crying out in the wilderness (Isaiah
40:3; John 1:23) to call for our preparation to welcome Christ. The lights have
nothing to do with the great light (Isaiah 9:1) to boost our hope for the
coming of the incarnated Christ, who is born of the virgin (Isaiah 7:14). These noises and lights out in the world
during this time of the year can be nothing but distractions from our true
Advent focus on preparing for the coming of the incarnated Christ to welcome
him in our hearts.
John the Baptist has called us to start working
diligently to prepare to welcome Christ at his arrival by making his path
straight – making our hearts even and smooth – without any raggedness, no
valleys and no mountains, meaning that our hearts have no emotional ups and
downs (Isaiah 40:3-4; Mark 1:3). In other words, we work on peace in our hearts
to welcome the incarnated Christ. Doesn’t he deserve to arrive in our peaceful
hearts, after traveling for eons and far more than billions of light years of
distance, since before the all ages? So, if we are truly working for the
incarnated Christ to come to our hearts, we cannot let all these worldly noises
and lights of distress to side track our attention, resulting in missing his
arrival. Speaking of missing, the word, “sin”(
ἁμαρτία/hamartia)
literally means “missing (a mark)”. Missing the moment of the incarnated Christ’s
arrival because of the unpreparedness, as the foolish virgins missed to see the
returned bridegroom (Matthew 25:1-13), is a sin. So, let us keep us from these
noises and lights in our continuing preparation to welcome Christ at his
arrival.
The 14th day of December is the memorial
feast of St. John of the Cross, and there is a great lesson we can learn from
him on silence and darkness – our need to fight against temptations to be drawn
to these distracting noises and lights but to stay focused on the true voice
and the light.
So, let us stay away from these worldly noises and
lights as we come to the kind of darkness and stillness that St. John of the Cross
describes as “Dark Night of the Soul”, the purgatorial darkness of preparation
to find the light and the voice of the one, whom we welcome.
Hallelujah!
Blessed the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his command.
His
descendants shall be mighty in the land, a generation of the upright will be
blessed.
Wealth
and riches shall be in his house; his righteousness shall endure forever.
Light
shines through the darkness for the upright; gracious, compassionate, and
righteous.
Psalm 112:1-4
Christ, the Son of God, has promised us to be
children of God (John 1:12), and through our faith in him, we become children
of God (1 John 3:1), “His descendants” to be blessed (Psalm 112:2). And, the
blessings come with the light shines through the darkness for us (Psalm 112:4).
Now, from v.5 to v.10, we are also reminded that our
hearts are in peace (in tranquility) and secure upon “filling every valley and
flattening every mountain” so that Christ’s gloriously light is revealed
(Isaiah 40:4-5) (Psalm 112:6-8) because such stable peaceful hearts enables us
to work with justice and compassion, keeping anger and wickedness off (Psalm
112:4b-5,9-10).
Remember, our Advent work with diligence and
vigilance is to make sure that we will not get caught off guard and unprepared
when Christ arrives. And what if he arrives in poverty? If our hearts are
secure enough to be generous in reaching out to the poor – to the least among
us, we would miss the mark when he arrives.
Who are kept in the darkness of the world because of
their poverty?
Such are the least among us, and they are obscured by these worldly noises and
lights of commercialism and consumerism.
Let us ascertain that we do our Advent preparation in the right kind of
darkness and silence.
Desolation
is a file, and the endurance of darkness is preparation for great light…..Abide
in peace ... In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.
St. John of the Cross
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