Homily for Sunday, 21 December 2014

4th Sunday in Advent

Readings of the day: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27-29; Romans 16:23-27; Luke 1:26-38

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

for I love you, Lord,

and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into your hands,

without reserve, and with boundless confidence,

for you are my Father.

For how many of us is “abandonment” a strange or scary word? It can convey a sense of recklessness, as in “reckless abandon” or avoiding responsibility. Abandon can mean accepting to give our lives for our faith; accepting martyrdom. This was likely the sense of abandon weighing on Charles de Foucauld, the Trappist monk who wrote the prayer I have just shared. Knowing his life was in danger, Charles de Foucauld wrote his “Prayer of Abandonment” not long before armed bandits broke into the desert hermitage where he was living in Tamanrasset, Algeria, kidnapped him and killed him on December 1, 1916. Blessed Charles de Foucauld lived and died in service to God; in service to the Touareg people whose language he learned and wrote down; to whom he brought our Christian faith. He lived and died by the words of his prayer: “Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will…”

Can abandonment not have another sense, no less strange or scary? Abandonment can mean, as I think it does in the truest sense of Blessed Charles de Foucauld’s “Prayer of Abandonment,” total self-giving trust in another; total trust in God. This trust is not reckless, but neither is it passive: “We’ll just trust in God and all will be well. We do not need to work to make God’s presence felt in our world.” No, the kind of abandonment of which I speak, the kind of abandonment that is Charles de Foucauld’s example of trust in God, is complete, active, and creative. If, in our Advent journey, anybody here has achieved complete, active and creative abandonment; trust in God, I hope to see you after Mass, because I do not think I have achieved this yet.

In Advent, do we not begin with anticipation?  Is not Advent is a time of anticipating the celebration of Christmas; of when God first sent his Son, Jesus Christ, among us in a manger in Bethlehem? In Advent we also anticipate in a more focused way the return of Jesus Christ at the end of time. If we move beyond anticipation in our Advent journey, we may be able to prepare more actively for the Christ. Our preparation to receive Christ may mean deeper examination of conscience; of where God is in our lives; building peace and mending broken relationships; attention to prayer; to opportunities for kindness and mercy toward one another; penance for the times we have fallen short in our preparation for our Christ. Our Advent preparation may lead us to profound joy, shown especially when we light the rose candle on our Advent wreath! But the goal of our Advent journey, complete, active, and creative abandonment into God’s hands, to God’s will, is a most difficult and scary goal to meet.

What do I mean by complete, active, and creative abandonment into God’s hands? This is the example of abandonment; trust in God given us by the Blessed Virgin Mary in our Gospel reading today from Luke. “May it be done to me according to your word,” Mary says to God through the angel Gabriel.

Luke’s Gospel says that Mary “was deeply troubled at” Gabriel’s announcement: She was to bear and give birth to the Son of God. And yet do we not still, at least sometimes, think little beyond the beautiful, peaceful aspects of this event (and so, I think, it is right that we be taken up by the beauty of this Advent and Christmas time)?

Gabriel visits Mary to say that she will bear Jesus, the Son of God. Mary agrees to God’s plan announced by Gabriel. Joseph silently trusts in God; also abandons himself to the will of God; to God’s plan for our salvation in which he, too, is now a part. We end up with a cute little baby, Jesus, in swaddling clothes in a manger on Christmas morning.

But how often do we think of how scary these events we celebrate, the Annunciation; the Birth of Jesus, must have been to Mary and to Joseph? The lifetime of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus was troubled, with the Romans exerting a reign of terror over Israel. No one, I am sure, would have wanted to find themselves expecting a baby they had not planned for, then or now, even if this baby were conceived by “the Holy Spirit”… and then to travel a great distance by donkey and on foot, only to find no room in the inn and to give birth in a stable. Imagine this!

And yet Joseph abandons himself to God; trusts in God’s plan through Mary; silently takes Mary as his wife and cares for Jesus as though he were his own son. Mary speaks the words of abandonment that change our world; that save us and our world, even amid the fear she must have been feeling: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

Would we be capable of this same abandonment to God’s will as Mary and Joseph were? Or would we attempt to limit God in our times of fear? Would we try to limit God by political ideology; by wanting to plan each aspect of our lives to a fault (I can be bad for this); by believing, as a society, in God, as long as our God interferes as little as possible in our lives; by our well-meaning plans and actions, like those of King David in our first reading from 2 Samuel, that are still subtle attempts to limit God…

But what does God do with our attempts to limit him? Consider David’s experience: David knows that God will give him anything he wishes. “The LORD is with you,” the prophet Nathan says, giving his blessing on God’s behalf to David’s plan to build a temple, a permanent house of God in place of the Ark of the Covenant. But then God asks David: “Should you build me a house to dwell in”? God has created our universe. God has created us to be the house for God to dwell in. It is futile to try to contain God; to “put God in a box,” even if this were possible.

And so, like David, we have a choice: Abandon ourselves into God’s hands; trust in God, or not. Do not most of us desire to abandon ourselves to God, and yet do so imperfectly? Let us not worry; in this way our imperfect abandonment to God is part of being human. And yet we have the example of abandonment of Mary and Joseph; of Blessed Charles de Foucauld; of many saints; of people as human as we are. Their trust in God is an invitation to us to the same complete, active, and creative abandonment in our lives; to pray and to ponder in the times when this abandonment scares us: “May it be done to me according to your word,” in our Blessed Mother’s words. Or, in the words of Blessed Charles de Foucauld:

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

for I love you, Lord,

and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into your hands,

without reserve, and with boundless confidence,

for you are my Father.