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The Fourth Sunday of Advent; Cycle B; December 19, 1999

Please first  read the selections from Sacred Scripture:


2nd Samuel 7.1-5,8-11,16;  Romans 16.25-27;  Luke 1.26-38

Who does what for whom?  Who is the subject of the action; the agent?  Who is the recipient of that action?  What is the action; what does the action consist of?

The First Reading answers these questions.  God sends the prophet Nathan to David to set him straight on the nature of transactions between God and him.  BUT THAT NIGHT THE LORD SPOKE TO NATHAN AND SAID: "GO TELL MY SERVANT DAVID, 'THUS SAYS THE LORD:  SHOULD YOU BUILD ME A HOUSE TO DWELL IN?"  In this last sentence God rejects the sequence of action proposed by David.  In this rejected transaction, "You" is David, the subject;  "me" is God, the recipient of the action.

God inverts the transaction to conform to divine reality.  IT WAS I WHO TOOK YOU FROM THE PASTURE AND FROM THE CARE OF THE FLOCK TO BE COMMANDER OF MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.  Now the subject "I" is God, the doer of the action; the object "you" is David.  I, God, do this for you, David.  

The work that is to be accomplished in this transaction is to build a dwelling place for God.  David had his house of cedar to live in; David wants to build the temple of beautiful stone and wood for God's dwelling.  It has to do with the divine presence, "the abiding with" of God among His people.  I WILL GIVE YOU REST FROM ALL YOUR ENEMIES(First Reading).  

These are all themes that pertain to the contemplative life.  The root word in "contemplative" is "temple."  Contemplation is all about the experience we have of the Triune God's dwelling within the depths of our consciousness so that our person is face to face with the Father in the Spirit in the image of the Son through love, faith and hope.   

"Know you not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?  You are not your \own; you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body (1st Corinthians 6.19-20).  The work of God in the redemption of Christ is to open us up to be a dwelling place for God, one with the people of God, the Church, the temple of the Lord's dwelling.

At the heart of the contemplative life is getting the transaction of this building right.  We must live in the reality, the truth.  It is God who does the work; we are the ones built up into the Lord.  It is I who do it for you; not you who do it for me, says the Lord.

The whole Second Reading is Paul's prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God for the work of redemption.  Through faith in God's power to save we begin the work of living in God and the building up of the Body of Christ, the Church.  TO HIM WHO IS ABLE TO STRENGTHEN YOU IN THE GOSPEL WHICH I PROCLAIM WHEN I PREACH JESUS CHRIST WHICH REVEALS THE MYSTERY HIDDEN FOR MANY AGES….—TO HIM, THE GOD WHO ALONE IS WISE, MAY GLORY BE GIVEN THROUGH JESUS CHRIST UNTO ENDLESS AGES AMEN (Second Reading).

In the drama of the Gospel Reading there is no mistaking the transaction:  Who does what to whom?  God's messenger comes with the Word and the Power and the Spirit to accomplish the work.  And Mary is limpid and gentle and open to the work of God.  God comes to dwell among us.  God makes His tent in Jesus.  Jesus is Emmanuel; Jesus is the Temple of the Presence because He is the Presence,  God with us.  [F]OR NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD.  Mary, full of grace, knows perfectly who she is in the mystery of God's redemption.  She receives from God what God wills to give.  I AM THE MAIDSERVANT OF THE LORD.  LET IS BE DONE TO ME AS YOU SAY.

Advent, moving along with the prophet Isaiah and the precursor, John the Baptist, now comes to the central figure in the work of redemption at its inception.  Mary is full of grace and she is completely open to God's work.  

It is not without difficulty that all this comes about.  It is all lived in the dark night of faith and hope.  The incarnation of the Son of God, the Word of the Father, takes place in a quiet instant.  Mary is pregnant with God among us.  Never before had God prepared such a temple to receive His presence, His very Self. Mary is the model, the model for the Church, for our contemplative life.  It is time to renew our devotion to Mary in our prayer practice.  She is the fulfillment of Paul's prayer in the Second Reading:  THAT THEY MAY BELIEVE AND OBEY.

We have before us all the essential ingredients of the contemplative life.  All that happens in the Gospel Reading has become the very drama of our lives with God. 

The terms, "contemplative-active" basically do not have to do with states of vocation in the Church.  Rather it has to do with the oscillation of being receptive to God (contemplative) and of cooperating with God in our disciplines of prayer, study, virtue and service (active).  Yes, we work to build the Temple but while we slumber God builds it for us.  Yes, we pray and study, and are faithful to virtue and service and the contemplative practice, in short we are active.  But then in an instant, in the deep quiet of our receptive faith and love, God grants transforming union—contemplation—in our utter poverty and receptivity to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The grace of God is the power for our building and activity.  God's power impels our prayer practice, our fidelity to receiving the Sacred Scripture into our hearts by reading and listening, in wordless, silent prayer, in our sharing in the Liturgy, especially in Holy Communion and in the reception of Reconciliation.  We are the rec…ipients; God is the agent in the mystery of Christ and His Holy Spirit.  The work is our transforming union in Christ.  It is action and contemplation, but the foundation is contemplative receptivity.

© - 1999, Dr. William F. Fredrickson


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