We have the joyful liturgical color of rose on Gaudete Sunday, as we are called to have joy in our hearts as the day of the birth of our Lord is at hand. The prophet Zephaniah calls us to sing joyfully and be glad and exult with all our hearts. As we await the birth of our Lord, Zephaniah assures us that God is in our midst, bringing us hope and safety.
In our Gospel today, John the Baptist brings us a message of reaching out of those in need, of living out our faith in God’s love and mercy in our actions. John also brings us a message of repentance, of changing our ways. He prepares a path for Christ as the day of his birth gets ever closer.
Just as John the Baptist is a curious Advent prophet, this weekend we celebrate the feast day of a great saint: John of the Cross, who feast day is December 14. Born in 1542 in Spain in the era of the Reformation, he and his good friend Teresa of Avila worked tirelessly to reform the Carmelite order. John’s mystical vision of God is reflected in his poem “The Dark Night of the Soul,” written after he was abducted by his fellow Carmelite brothers and imprisoned by them, as they were angry at his efforts to reform their order. In that poem, John wrote about the soul stealing out to meet Christ in love, under the cover of darkness, being embraced by Christ and his love. In the desolation of the prison cell where he was held captive, John of the Cross discovered that the most important thing in his life was his soul’s union with God, a union that not even a cold isolated jail cell could break apart. The austere theology and harsh life circumstances of St John of the Cross way seem out of place with Guadete Sunday, a day in which we are to rejoice in the upcoming birth of our Lord. However, in the midst of our Advent journey, the spirituality of John of the Cross calls us to acknowledge our poverty of spirit and our dependence on God as a starting point of our faith.
In my visits to Spain, I not only was able to visit the city of Avila where John of the Cross spent a lot of time with his mentor, St Teresa of Avila, but also the city of Segovia, where John of the Cross died in a jail cell in the harsh winter months of his confinement on December 14, 1591. John of the Cross is remembered today as a Doctor of the Church and as one of the greatest poets of the Spanish language. I want to end with a poem that John of the Cross wrote commemorating the season of Advent:
If you want the Virgin will come walking down the road pregnant with the holy, and say, “I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime intimacy, the divine, the Christ, taking birth forever, as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us.
Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim– the sacred womb in your soul, as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is His beloved servant never far.
If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the street pregnant with light and sing …
No comments:
Post a Comment