Kathy Coffey

Notice the angel Gabriel’s first word to Mary: “Rejoice.” Let’s remember it this week, which can be one of the most hectic in the year. The angel says, “rejoice.” [NAB] Not “spend. Clean. Cook. Decorate. Shop. Bake. Wrap. Shop again. Create the perfect holiday ambiance. Work to exhaustion. Make everyone in the family sublimely happy.”
In his Rule, St. Benedict says, “each day has reasons for joy.” Maybe at this time of year, they are more obvious. The shared belief of Christians is that Jesus has become one with humans, indeed has pitched his tent within us. None of us deserves this, so we celebrate God’s lavish abandon, the pure gratuity of God’s gift.
If this seems a tall order, if we’re too tired or depressed to rejoice, we can take heart from the ambiguity of the feast. Mary’s reaction to the angel is to be “much perplexed.” Indeed, the whole experience is for her a two-edged sword: joy tempered by natural, human fear.
This week, we’ll hear two songs of praise, Mary’s and Zechariah’s. Hers somehow overcomes the doubt and fear she must have felt. His breaks a long silence, welcomes new possibility, and expresses a hard-won trust in God—and his wife.

The people of John the Baptist’s day, like people today, would’ve expected any profound religious announcement to come in its proper place: from the rabbi in the synagogue. Instead, this unorthodox preacher appears in the Judean desert and attracts a crowd. People might be naturally suspicious. He certainly doesn’t use polite language, or worry about disturbing our comfort zones. Yet those too unsettled by this man in camel skin to pay attention might miss an important message. How sad to miss the Christ to whom John the Baptist points!
What unlikely prophets live among us? What surprising spirituality have we encountered where we least expected it? Did it come from someone too young to believe, or someone too oddly dressed to have credibility?

Especially if we’re self-righteous churchgoers, we need a herald like John to shake up our easy assumptions. We may not like the direction in which such leaders point, but their challenge upsets our own infallibility. It’s sadly easy to enshrine our personal opinions and make our preferences into little gods. In the spiritual life, some uncertainty and hesitancy, especially regarding our impeccable selves, is useful.

Feast of All Saints Meditation

When Jesus first walked among the crowds speaking the Beatitudes, the promises he made must have seemed astonishing. But Christians throughout history have recorded their own astonishment at the amazing fulfillment of what must have at first seemed utterly outlandish.

While many people are struck dumb by the gifts they have received, others are inarticulate. They may feel the amazement, but putting it in words is the work of the poets. So Raymond Carver, who died at fifty, marveled that the last ten years of his life were “gravy.” Because of his alcoholism, he had received a terminal diagnosis at age forty. The love of poet Tess Gallagher, with her encouragement to stop drinking, bought him years he never thought he’d see.

C.S. Lewis explains the thinking behind the Beatitudes:

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Metaphorically, then do we settle for living in a dark, damp basement when we could be enjoying the five star resort?