Where hope speaks

‘At his first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as a garment. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 313-386)

Our days are determined by the voices we hear.

Listen to the chaos and clamor, the cacophony of voices in the tumult of the world and our fractured politics, and the heart soon sinks into the ceaseless waves of turbulence.

Each fresh news alert and angry social media post assaults our hearts with ever-deeper depths of depravity, injustice and indecency in high and low places.

There is no peace there, no steady voice of calm, nothing to still the mind with the assurance of eternal verities, a rock on which to anchor our hearts against the restless wash of the world too much with us, on us and in us.

With Advent, I turn each year to ancient voices speaking pastoral words from the tumult of their times to our own. They did not know what we face as our society devolves into bitter anger and deepening mistrust. No, they knew worse.

From the midst of their struggle, they speak the great truth of the season: God comes. God always comes.

Their words are not theory or blind hope but the witness of the ages to our own. To us, they say, ‘This … we know.’ The One who came in swaddling clothes to fulfill Love’s divine plan and show us Truth itself will come again to unite all things in the Love God is.

‘Christ’s coming was not only for the benefit of his contemporaries; his power has still to be communicated to us all. … [H]e will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bringing with him the riches of his grace.’ (St. Charles Borromeo, 1538-1584)

What we await comes even now to the depth of our hearts, joining us to the long line of holy expectation stretching across the centuries from the earliest witnesses to our here and now.

 

And this I feel as the warmth of love rises, a tide of grace within my heart, filling the volume of myself, at least for this moment, that I may say … thank you … to those who spoke their witness in ancient times, assuring me that I am not alone, that my anxious heart is hardly unique, that I, like them, are meant to know this love and to live in expectation of the Lord’s coming, no matter the news of the day.

There is peace and strength in their witness, stability and hope.

For hope is the presence of love … longing for love’s fulfillment. It is the ache of the heart, yearning for the love it feels to fill the earth, like the waters cover the sea.

Come, Lord Jesus, speak peace to our hearts lest our souls be lost to the tides of our times. Speak in words, ancient and true, that the beauty of our hope maybe born anew.

David L. Miller