PARADOXICAL

(Notes from Bishop Chito Tagle’s advent recollection. 11. 22.2004. Greenbelt Chapel)

Advent is all about waiting.

Life is constant waiting. Who has not waited among us? I wait for the time I’d get rich. He waits for better times ahead. You wait for the results of your bar exam. She waits for someone who would love her; she’s been waiting for all of 70 years!

All of us wait one way or another. To live is to wait.

Advent is ushered in by commemorating the Annunciation. It is thus interesting to dissect Mary’s reaction to the angel’s announcement of God’s plan in her life.

Fear

There are three elements of advent. First among these is fear.

When the angel of God appeared to her, Mary’s first reaction was fear, a sense of trouble. “How can this be when I have no man?”

There are three expressions of fear. Paralysis. Withdrawal. Violence.

Today we are paralyzed in almost every conceivable way. There is a strong sense of despair in this country, as though everything is hopeless.

The past few days, we are paralyzed when we hear the news about the outbreak of this disease called meningococcimea. All those who had money had to hoard this antibiotic rifampicin. Result? Those who need it the most, those most vulnerable to fall ill, are left with nothing.

Fear grips us in a way we may have never imagined. Some, in total helplessness, revert to the fetal position. Some go to war out of fear. We hear the news and we focus on the bad, the ugly, the negative, because we fear. Everywhere we look, we see expressions of fear.

We view the world not with sunglasses but with fearglasses.


***

Reflection:

How do you express your fear? Is it by being paralyzed? By withdrawal? Or by being violent?

***

From another viewpoint, fear is but a form of protecting ourselves.

However, we might be protecting ourselves but we might end up rejecting God’s plan.

Fearfulness can be selfish. When fear leads to rejection of the will of God, it’s a deadly kind of fear.

***

Anticipation

After her initial reaction, Mary’s next response was one of hopeful anticipation.

And she hoped because there was a reason to – Jesus, the God who saves.

One of the marvelous things about us Filipinos is our ability to laugh in spite of it all. Isn’t this a sign (more) of an expectant faith (than a kind of fatalism)?

If we are caught in panic, advent doesn’t make sense. If we have given up all hope in favor of despair, in favor of desperation, it must be that we have stopped being expectant, we have given up on waiting.

If we no longer expect, it is because we don’t want to wait. We want to be in control. “My plan” instead of “God’s plan.”

Fearful people cannot wait.

***

Cooperation

Mary, of course, ultimately cooperated with God’s plan, in spite of all the unbelievable things told her. (“You shall bear the Son of God.”)

At first Mary feared because she had her life laid out before her. “I am about to marry this man and suddenly God is asking me to bear a child?” But before long, there was a shift from “my plan” to “God’s plan.”

“Be it done to me according to your word.”

posted by Resty Odon  # 1:24 AM