As preached by Sister Rebecca
Holy Wisdom Chapel
Holy Wisdom Chapel
In
today’s Gospel, we heard about a supremely important event when Jesus was 40 days
old. Mary and Joseph, obedient to the Jewish Law, journey to the Temple in
Jerusalem. The focus of this event is on
the encounter of the Child Jesus with an Elder, Simeon, and the Prophetess
Anna. The latter, Anna, never left the
Temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer, night and day. The former,
Simeon, is described as righteous and devout, waiting upon the consolation of
God. Both Simeon and Anna, beyond the
legalities, were LONGING to see the Messiah, and the consolation for Israel.
Simeon, in his immense desire, portrays
the psalmist (Ps 131): “I wait for the
Lord, my soul waits, and in his word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen
for the dawn, more than watchmen wait for the dawn. O Israel, hope in the Lord;
for with the Lord there is mercy, and with the Lord is fullness of redemption.”
His desire was more than just piety;
it was holy longing, and in this yearning the Holy Spirit leads Simeon to the
Temple. Taking the Child Jesus into his
arms, Simeon exclaims: “Master, now you
are dismissing your servant in peace according to your word; for my eyes have
seen your salvation,...a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory
to your people Israel.”
Simeon sees in this Child not just a
passive baby, but the very embodiment of God’s longing for humanity. He has
been waiting, anticipating, and preparing a long time for the fulfillment of
that prophesy and promise. After decades
of waiting, he exclaims: “My eyes have seen your salvation.”
There is a tension here: It says something about our understanding and
experience of God, in life and in the world.
For most of us, the world is often limited to the physical, the
tangible, and the sensory. What Simeon sees is beyond the physical reality of
THIS child. It is an enlightenment
experience for him. His seeing is not an
issue to be resolved; it is the entry into another realm. It is about another way of being, another way
of seeing, and another way of knowing.
That day in the Temple, Simeon and Anna saw more than what the physical
eyes could perceive. It was a Divine
Encounter, a peering into the Eternal.
What does this Encounter say to us
this morning? It is not simply an event
in history. This very Encounter is
happening all the time. The invisible is
seen, the intangible is touched, the unspoken is heard. The Feast of the Encounter, at its core, is a
feast of longing, of deep desire. This
feast reveals the longing between humanity and divinity. Aren’t our deepest longings about desiring to
know and to be known? Not a kind of knowing about this or that, even
learning about God. Our longing
is for relationship, connection in and through the God within us, and seeing, experiencing
God in all things. For this to happen we
must live with, and offer, the fragility, vulnerability, and joy of an open and
longing heart. That heart is the Temple,
the inner space of Encounter with God.
This feast has a huge message for us
today: A challenge! This perception of the awesome mystery of God
includes an experience of the sword. As
predicted, Mary’s heart will be pierced by a sword. And so will ours. This sword cuts through the veil of our
shadow’s hidden unhealed parts. As
Simeon prophesies, “the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” They emerge
out of the dark into the light. But the Temple experience, when pondered and
meditated on in our hearts as Mary did, assures us that the darkness will not
overcome the Light.
Today
is also Zacchaeus Sunday. Because
the liturgical calendar this year conflates this Sunday with the Encounter
Feast, we anticipated Zacchaeus last Sunday. Br Stavros, in his homily then, offered us insights
that we might want to recall today.
Zacchaeus is also a person of desire. Without desire, what are we left with? A hollow, foreboding emptiness, sometimes
bordering on pessimism, looking out at life through dark lenses. Despair is not an option when we grow
more deeply aware of our personal and global encounter with God. This Sunday of Zacchaeus invites us to open
our eyes to the next doorway leading in to Lent. These two feasts are meant to ignite
in us a desire like that of Zacchaeus, who was passionate about seeing Jesus. It
changed his life: a 180-degree turnabout. Desire does things to us that seem
unbelievable to our natural inclinations. This desire forces Christ’s attention. So too, this same desire brought within Simeon’s
and Anna’s souls an Encounter with our living God.
How do we move forward and at the
same time be realistic and take account of all the unique pressures of our
times? What Light, vision, and disciplines do we need to creatively channel the
Spirit Fire inside us, so that its end result is creative days and restful
nights and enduring peace in our encountering God, within ourselves and in
connection with others?
Resources:
Rev.
Michael Marsh: a homily Feb. 4th, 2017
Fr.
Ronald Rolheiser: from Holy Longing
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