This first Sunday of Advent, I thought I would share this lovely sonnet by Hazel Littlefield Smith. Hazel was born not too far from where I was raised in Michigan and spent her last years in Ann Arbor. She and her husband were missionaries in China for thirteen years during the “reign of the War Lords”. I love this sentence from her obituary: “Mrs. Smith never lost touch with the Michigan woods she loved so dearly.” I’m not sure where I came upon this poem of hers, but it seems perfect for the beginning of Advent.
Gerrit Dou – Old Woman at a Window with a Candle – GD-103 – Leiden Collection
Come Soon
I set my candle where the shadows loom, A flame of faith between the eyes of fate, And I am waiting in the windy gloom; O come, my Love, for it is growing late. Small doubts on darkling wings flit here and there Uncertainly in the grey, lingering light, Mysterious music haunts the troubled air, And none but you can comfort me tonight.
I wait upon the moment’s hazard now; Is there no power can hold the darkness back Until you come? I do not disavow Your promised love—the one thing I most lack. The hour is late, dear Love, come soon, come soon; Then shall the night be lovelier than noon.
This week’s Sunday poem is by Luci Shaw, still writing poetry in her late 90’s. (Shouldn’t we all?) I have been reading her poetry for at least four decades, if I remember correctly, have copied numerous of her poems in my poetry journals, and go back to them regularly. (Her prose is as good as her poems. My favorite.)
“Royalty” is actually about Christ on Palm Sunday, but it came to my mind today on this Feast of Christ the King. I won’t be surprised if at the Second Coming Christ will still look more like this than any other depiction of him as King of kings.
Royalty
He was a plain man and learned no latin.
Having left all gold behind he dealt out peace to all us wild ones and the weather.
As we near the end of the liturgical year and the Sunday readings are more and more about judgment, I find myself remembering little Thérèse’s thoughts about God’s judgment: “What a sweet joy it is to think that God is Just, i.e., that He takes into account our weakness, that He is perfectly aware of our fragile nature. What should I fear then? Ah! must not the infinitely just God, who deigns to pardon the faults of the prodigal son with so much kindness, be just also toward me who “am with Him always?” (Luke 15:31)
We must remember the mercy and love that drove Jesus to come to us then and to still come to us at every moment. Gregory of Narek gives us the example of boldly reminding Christ of his total love for us.
Refuge for my broken spirit lies in your living, incorruptible, constant hope, that looking on me with mercy, as one condemned to perdition, when I present myself before our heavenly beneficence, empty-handed and without gifts, brining with me the evidence of your untold glory, I will remind you who never slumbers in forgetfulness, who never shuts your eyes, never ignores the sighs of grief, That with your cross of light you may lift away from me, I beg you, the peril that chokes me, with your comforting care, the vacillating sadness, with your crown of thorns, the germs of my sin, with the lashes of the whip, the blows of death, with the memory of the slap in the face, the neediness of my shame, with the spitting of your enemies, my contemptible vileness, with your sip of vinegar, the bitterness of my soul.
A poem from Anthony Esolen for our Sunday poem this week. Anthony is one of the finest contemporary poets I have come across. If you haven’t read his The Hundredfold, do so.
O Lord, our Lord how wonderful is Thy name in all the earth!
I love Thy words, O Lord, and always shall: The fresh sun shining forth in brash delight, Then blushing gently in his evening fall Like a youth from a dance; the deeps of night Swaying the pilgrim spirit to behold A sea powdered with stars, all life and light Sprung from the Ancient One who is not old, Given to man the Child. So from above Glimmers a world of glory manifold, And my return is gratitude and love.
Prayer is vulnerability, a willingness to live in naked abandonment, and in agendaless gaze, never turning back.
This person is a divine radical.
They are totally unafraid to be seen, and have given up all fear of rejection and control. They are utterly free. Truly and totally.
Why? Because they have nothing left to lose. They have already bared all before God and been found not wanting, but embraced by perfect love. They have learned in prayer that they are accepted, and not to be afraid.
This person is untouchable by the world because they have found a home where they are never rejected, never turned away, or left alone. They are stable, immovable now. They have been “filled with the fullness of God”1 so much so that they burn with enough love to give away endlessly to all they meet.
They’re not self-protective. They, like Christ, are able to be seen as they are before the world unclothed in pretence or inhibited by shame because they have come to see their weakness as the very power through which God is more clearly seen and love more tangibly experienced.
This kind of peace is miraculous. Truly, it is. No self-help books can get us there, no affirmations are enough. Just telling ourselves we’re loved can get us some way, but not in the deep places where we know how broken we truly are. For that we need God himself, doing surgery in the deep self.
No, we must gaze eyes open and unashamed into the very burning heart of Love Himself and have Him tell us we’re wanted, we’re healed, we’re enough. This Truth is relational, personal, real. God is not a set of wishful affirmations, He is the Person for whom we were made.
We may not reach such perfection in this life, but we can grow exponentially in it. Daily living more and more from love rather than for it. Slowly relenting our insecurities and discovering confidence. Gradually becoming more like the God we see and know.
Don’t be afraid. If there’s reason to worry God will reject you in your brokenness then what was the cross for? Did God go to all this work simply to keep you at arms length? Do you think Christ himself would endure torture, humiliation and death just so you could continue to wonder whether you’re wanted, loved, and accepted?
Of course not! Don’t forget that it is God who loved us first, who made the first vulnerable move2.
Why not open up, be poor with God, and let him see all of you. Why not refuse to divert your eyes, gaze into his love, his pursuing desire of you, let it affect you, fill you, transform you. It is enough for God to see you each day like this to make you an entirely new person. One who is alive, and totally free, no longer afraid.
Then you too may pray the ancient prayer, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”3
It’s always with “unveiled faces” that we’re invited to “contemplate the Lord’s glory” in communion. Anything less steals from God what he desires most: our naked abandonment to his presence.
One of our Sisters wrote this incredibly beautiful version of In Paradisium. Here she is playing it while Sister Rachel sings it at the funeral of a dear friend.
Witnesses to Hope 