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.
