You can't learn love

Monday, December 19, 2016

Monday of the 4^th Week of Advent

We are waiting for the miraculous this season, and it is something that has already happened but yet, as we ride the gentle waves of the liturgical cycle, we get to play “make believe” like little children and “pretend” that is hasn’t occurred yet, and with joyful anticipation we await the birth of the Lord anew.

Already/not yet. This is the time for the mystical, which is as far beyond linear time as the notion of God’s free gift of grace is from a simple stocking-stuffer. The birth of Christ has already taken place, but it has not happened yet as we make our way through the Advent readings and prayers, the O Antiphons and the hymns of expectation.

And so, if we are willing to become like little children and put down our pretentious sophistication for a while, we dwell in the land of excitement and enchantment. The Mass readings for this period of time help us as well. Today we hear of two miraculous pregnancies, miraculous because the women involved are old and barren and in disgrace, because to be barren in that society was a sign of God’s disfavor.

Manoah was to become the mother of Sampson; Elizabeth was to become the mother of John the Baptist. Both of these miracles were heralded by an angel of God, one of the same angels, we might imagine, who would be singing in flight above the manger in Bethlehem, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will.” Notice that I used the new “official” translation!

And the stage is being set for The Miraculous Birth by tales of other miracles that were taking place in the story of salvation history.

I must confess that I have a Facebook account, and at this time of year I enjoy seeing pictures of so many of my former students and friends who are building their own families, and I take delight in seeing the joy and excitement on the faces of the children. And I am moved to pray for all the children in our world whose faces are faces of misery, pain, abandonment and terror. But for today I want to focus on the happy children, and realize that even if they cannot conceptualize what is happening to them, in effect, what they are experiencing is the result of being loved.

As Fr. Richard Rohr reminds us, we don’t learn to love by studying ideas or doctrines or concepts. WE learn to love by experiencing it and “catching” it as it moves through our being.

I once heard a tale of a young man who had been lost in dissolute living and who went to a priest to ask why it was that he had not been able to find love in his life. “Do you want to find love?” the priest asked.

“Yes, Father.” “Well then, go and find yourself the nearest orphanage and volunteer to help out there for the next week, helping the children there to get through Christmas. If you do that, you will find love. You will find it by giving it.” And the young man took the priest’s advice, and he ended up saving his life and saving his soul.

Be a child this week. See the child within the people you deal with on a daily basis. And make the children smile. This is the stuff of miracles.

God bless you!