Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Randall Greve, OHC
The Presentation of Our Lord - Tuesday, February 2, 2021Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40
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When I was a seminarian at Wycliffe College, one of my classmates was a woman in her twenties who was interested in monastic life and wanted to hear the story of my call and vocation. I told her about my first visit to any monastery, Gethsemani Abbey, in 1991, and how, in retrospect, that visit began an interest and attraction that led ultimately to the Order. “Isn’t it too bad that you wasted all that time when you knew you had a calling?”, she said. I replied that those years were not wasted, but preparatory. It was a long and often frustrating time, those years between 1991 and 2005, when I entered.
The call was there, but I had to grow into it, give myself to it. And that took time, and I was impatient. I know that now, looking back, but there were times in the 90s when I did indeed think I was wasting time. We only know we are being prepared for the main vocation of our lives after years pass and we look back. In the moment, it can feel as if nothing much is happening, that the waiting is going nowhere. In those years I knew there was something I was supposed to do, somewhere to be, and the quicker I figured that out, the quicker I could get on with living my actual life. Anything before that, any life other than that, had to be unfaithful, squandered, frivolous. We both, my friend and I, in different times and ways, were tempted by lust for the instant – that wanting to know and do, now - why wait, why waste time?
In the Gospel reading for the Presentation, Simeon and Anna build upon Luke’s unfolding of a beautiful story of waiting and hope, desire and fulfillment. The Gospel of Luke is the Gospel of patience, longing, and the joy that bursts forth when the Savior appears – more compassionate than we could have imagined, more beautiful than we believed possible, more mysterious than makes us comfortable. In his amazing book Symbol and Sacrament, Louis-Marie Chauvet, speaks of Luke as describing the “presence of the absence of Jesus”. From the Visitation to Mary, a young woman from a small, insignificant village, to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we encounter the Christ whose manifestation is at first gentle, almost secret and unobtrusive. In his ministry, Jesus can be heard and seen and touched, but never controlled, possessed, conjured. He comes to the willing, the searching, even in disguise, and then disappears. Luke’s is the spirituality of being visited, graced with a grace we could not have imagined, did not earn, and cannot possess.
Simeon and Anna have waited, not for minutes or months, but decades. Not wasting time, not sitting idly by, but already within them is the presence of the Savior, absent to their senses, not yet enfleshed, but truly present in the person of the Holy Spirit. The spirit of him for whom they wait but do not see is resting on them, which inspires their faithful watching. Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the mystery of yearning and satisfaction. We ascend up the mountain to God, in the cloud, not seeing the top, not ceasing or falling back, not in order to finally fulfill the desire to see, not because our arrival at the top is guaranteed or even the end, but because the desire is the fulfillment, to ascend is already to have arrived, the cloud, if we were to discern wisely, is not the barrier to the vision of God, but is already the presence of the mystery itself. Simeon is “looking forward to the consolation”, the “comforting spirit”… “and the Holy Spirit rested on him.” Anna is fasting and praying day and night, “at that moment she came…” The Presentation itself is the fulfillment of that for which Simeon and Anna had hoped and believed. But their faithful prayer, their attentive presence, all the long months and years that led to this moment were not wasted. They were living their vocation long before Mary and Joseph and the Baby appeared that day in the temple. Jesus’ presence and power are revealed to those who watch and pray.
How often I still want to know, measure, figure it out – and quickly. How often I would rather possess Jesus than welcome his resting presence; put him to work for me rather than gaze into his eyes. We all certainly work hard around here and set about our tasks with diligence and care. Sometimes I wonder whether the Holy Spirit is running to catch up with me rather than resting on me! Within all our good and hard work, let us remember that our vocation is more than the sum of our tasks. While the important outer work goes on day by day in beautiful and visible ways, there is another kind of work happening below the surface. The work of God in my soul happens in secret, hidden even from me. It seems the things that matter to God are not all that public or spectacular. God usually prefers the quiet and slow.
We are invited to become people on whom the Holy Spirit rests, in whom this way of expectant waiting and watching and welcoming is the heart of our life in the world. This rest becomes the companion to all our activity, all our prayers, so that we do everything from peace, not chaos. We hold ourselves open before the God who prays from within. The awareness of the desire for divine encounter, the longing for an experience that seems just out of reach, conceivable but not acquired, is ordinary spiritual life. God can choose to visit us in ways that seem to us to pierce the veil between heaven and earth in which we catch an extraordinary glimpse of the mystery, but those are rare. Memorable moments come by God’s grace, but do not last very long. Our openheartedness is not for the sake of an experience, but for the sake of seeing Christ everywhere and in all things.
In a culture, sometimes even a monastery, that is prone to the worship of productivity, it is tempting to live on the surface and reduce our spirituality to what we can perceive and effect. We are ushered into the story today to take our place among the waiters and wonderers, with Mary and Joseph. We, too, are held by the promise of our encounter with Christ in that yet awaits in that place where the dark glass is made clear and we see face to face. And then the One who was held by Simeon and Anna will hold us in his arms, and we can join in the song of seeing and light.
Amen.
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