Waiting in a silent prayer.

et it be to me accord­ing to your word.” That is not just an incred­i­ble act of com­plete humil­i­ty and obe­di­ence, but it is an act of almost unimag­in­able sur­ren­der. If Mary was found with child out of mar­riage, by the law of Israel she could be stoned. And she could have said no, and avoid­ed all that. Instead she said “Fiat,” being under no mis­un­der­stand­ing about what that word could have meant to her, yet trust­ing ful­ly in the God who sent His archangel. But how would you feel to know that you had con­ceived in your womb the Cre­ator of all things, and that in nine months you would give birth to God? Even if you were immac­u­late­ly con­ceived, would you feel wor­thy? What would you do?

Here is what Mary did: Moved not by self-pride, or self-pity, but love and char­i­ty, she went to vis­it her cousin Elis­a­beth. Trust­ing that God would make all things known to him, she told Joseph. (And Joseph, like Mary, did all that God asked of him.) She left the rest to God, and pon­dered all things in her heart. In the words of the song, she “wait­ed in a silent prayer.”

THE LOAD I BEAR

But I wail and protest at less­er loads, as if I of all men am most beset. God has not done to me as He ought, and all of this and that is askew and can’t get right­ed. I can not wait in a silent prayer, for I am run­ning around in a vocal plaint.

I have no mon­ey.

Where do I come up with the gas to dri­ve to work?

Now I have been laid off.

I have the emp­ti­est refrig­er­a­tor in West­ern civ­i­liza­tion, or what is left of it after five years of Lord Cae­sar Oba­ma.

No one is hir­ing me.

Well, some­one just hired me, and I took it, because I had to, but it pays less mon­ey and it is in the next state and I’ll need to pay all this extra mon­ey in gas, and gas prices are unmen­tion­ably high in the reign of emper­or Barackus Oba­mus Cae­sar.

How on earth can any blog­ger func­tion with a com­put­er this insane­ly slow? Attempt to upload one pho­to and it takes an hour.

My back hurts.

Anoth­er night of hot dogs and beans again.

When do I stop being tired all the time?

If I meet the guy who said that poor peo­ple are hap­pi­er, I think I will sock him in the jaw.

I think I would prob­a­bly be com­plain­ing if I had a mil­lion dol­lars in the bank, just that I would be com­plain­ing about dif­fer­ent things.

Mea max­i­ma cul­pa.

What Mary did is the hard­est and most impos­si­ble of all things; and that is why we need Mary. She had no less fear, and pos­si­bly more, but she gave it all, with her will, to the God who made her. Mary does not teach us easy things, but she teach­es us nec­es­sary things. And what is most nec­es­sary is her one word: Fiat.

Mary did not ask that Gabriel explain the ways of God. She sim­ply said, “Let it be done to me.” I don’t sus­pect that her load was less because she was car­ry­ing God inside her. I believe that she car­ried the heav­i­est load of all, and she car­ried it from Nazareth to Beth­le­hem, and then to Egypt and back, and all the way to the cross, and after the cross.

Help me, Lord; I do not know how to do that.

POUR OVER ME YOUR HOLINESS

Hen­ry Ossawa Tan­ner’s por­trait of the Annun­ci­a­tion is the most star­tling and true. I have seen no oth­er that dares to por­tray Gabriel not as a man with angel­ic wings, but as a ver­ti­cal pil­lar of fire and light. Mary, who looks at it, her head tilt­ed, her eyes star­ing at the oppo­site upward angle, might be full of fear, or won­der, or intense under­stand­ing; or it may be that she is ful­ly rapt by the Holy Spir­it, and that you could inter­pret her expres­sion as a nup­tial gaze. The intense beau­ty of light and shad­ow enveloped upon still­ness and inno­cence is remark­able.

Tan­ner’s depic­tion of the Annun­ci­a­tion turns that event into an encounter sim­i­lar to Moses at the burn­ing bush, the Israelis in the desert, the apos­tles at Pen­te­cost, and St. Paul on the Dam­as­cus road. When God comes to us, he comes to us as light, and much light, and light that dri­ves us to silence and kneel­ing and sometimes—as in the case of St. Paul—blindness for a time. If we can­not say “Fiat” to light, we are left not only in dark­ness, but we are left uncre­at­ed. For God’s very first words, cre­at­ing the heav­ens and the earth, were “Fiat lux” (Gen. 1:3). Thus in the Annun­ci­a­tion, Mary is con­front­ed with lux and says “Fiat.” Mary does not reverse the cre­ation, but through her fiat, God restores the cre­ation; He restores lux.

A bet­ter ques­tion than how we bear the dark­ness is how we bear the light.

I OFFER ALL I AM

So Advent is about wait­ing, it is about sur­ren­der, and the silence of trust. It is also about repen­tance from sin and self-offer­ing to God. It is about learn­ing the weight of a fiat.

It is about know­ing the pres­ence of God and the right­ness of His plan even as all our own plans slant and tum­ble and fall amiss.

God comes to us. He comes to us not because our lives are full of peace and there is mon­ey in the bank and gas in the car and food in the cup­board and clothes for all the kids. He comes to us because we have strife, because we are broke, because we have nowhere to walk and lit­tle to eat and wear socks with holes and shirts with frays. He comes to us when we are cry­ing and bro­ken, and if we don’t see Him it is because we are hid­ing our face when we should look at light and say joy. He comes to us because He is God.

He has come to us for two thou­sand Christ­mases, and He comes again on this one. If we are not afraid to look at light, if we are silent with prayer, if we say our own hum­ble fiats to Him, if we sur­ren­der and offer our­selves, He will come and fill the wait­ing manger and the wait­ing emp­ty space that yearns for Him alone.

After all, He has come before. Noth­ing stops Him now.

What Mary did is the hard­est and most impos­si­ble of all things; and that is why we need Mary. She had no less fear, and pos­si­bly more, but she gave it all, with her will, to the God who made her. Mary does not teach us easy things, but she teach­es us nec­es­sary things. And what is most nec­es­sary is her one word: Fiat.

Help me Lord; I do not know how to do that.

But I will offer you all that I am, and all that you have giv­en me, and walk the road with Mary from Nazareth to Beth­le­hem, and wait at the manger for the arrival of a King, and light, and mer­cy, which is all I need and more than all.

Help me be strong; help me be; help me.