Way of Love - December 9

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Advent is a paradox. It is said to be a time of preparation for the coming of Christ into our world and into our lives, and yet, of course, we only observe Advent because Christ has already come. The Word of God was formed in the womb of his mother Mary and “born in human likeness” (Philippians 2:7). The light of the world is already shining brightly. Yes, Advent points forward to the definitive coming of Christ, but, equally, it draws our attention to what already is.

So, if we take seriously that Christ has already come, then what are we preparing for? It must be a preparation of ourselves to behold and respond to what is already present, available, and shining brightly. Advent calls us to train our perception to witness Christ and the way of love that he is already working in the world around us and calling us into. Advent is a challenge to learn, again and again, how to see.

This is important, because the de facto mode of seeing and being in the world is too often not the way of love. The way of love, the way of Christ, will always be countercultural even as it is in harmony with our inmost being, as it is created in the image of God.

As one of my favorite movies, The Tree of Life, puts it:

"The nuns taught us there are two ways through life: the way of Nature and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow.

Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.

Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things."

The way of Nature as it's described here is blind. Blind to the glory shining in all the world, blind to the love smiling through all things. And so, estranged from the grace pervading all things, estranged from the source of life and goodness and joy, it hardens, becomes brittle, insists on its own way.

Jesus was a healer of the blind. Throughout the Gospels, he repeatedly restores their sight. At the beginning of his ministry, he announces that he has been sent to "proclaim... recovery of sight to the blind” (Luke 4:18).

How can Jesus, the one “who is and who was and who is to come," (Revelation 1:4) open my eyes, open our eyes, this Advent? What blind spots does he want to heal in us so that we can see, more and more, the light of Christ shining in the world? What dust on the window of our souls does he want to clear away so that we, like Mary the Mother of God, might be places where the way of love radiates into the world?

Post by John Kennedy