Advent: Week 2, Day 2, Seconding the Motion

Donna
15 minutes ago
4 min read

The Annuncation by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)

Angel: Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High.

Mary: Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. Luke 1:30-32, 38

Mary Considers Her Situation

What next, she wonders,

With the angel disappearing, and her room

Suddenly gone dark.

The loneliness of her news

possesses her. She ponders

how to tell her mother.

Still, the secret at her heart burns like

a sun rising. How to hold it in—

that which cannot be contained.

She nestles into herself, half-convinced

it was some kind of good dream,

she its visionary.

But then, part dazzled, part prescient--

she hugs her body, a pod with a seed

that will split her.

-Luci Shaw, Scape: Poems

She was not asked to do anything herself, but to let something be done to her. She was not asked to renounce anything, but receive an incredible gift. She was not asked to lead a special kind of life…she was simply to remain in the world. God asked for her ordinary life shared with Joseph. Mary said, Yes.

Recently, in his online reflections, Richard Rohr wrote about Mary's "Yes.":

"It was Mary who responded with an unconditional yes to the angel’s announcement that she was to give birth to the Messiah. Mary is the model of the faith to which God calls all of us: a total and unreserved yes to God’s request to be present in and to the world through us.

Mary’s kind of yes doesn’t come easily to us. It always requires that we let down some of our ego boundaries, and none of us likes to do that. Mary’s kind of yes, as it is presented in the Gospel, is an assent utterly unprepared for, with no preconditions of worthiness required, that is calmly, wonderfully trustful that someone else is in charge...It’s a yes that is pure in motivation, open-ended in intent, and calm in confidence. Only grace can achieve such freedom in the soul, heart, or mind."

It is understandable to be in awe of Mary's "yes" and wonder how we might be so trusting, so surrendered. The good news, says Rohr, is that we don't have to say yes by our own will.

Rohr continues, "We don’t know how to say yes by ourselves. We just “second the motion”! There is a part of us, the Holy Spirit within, that has always said yes to God. God first says “yes” inside of us, and we say, “Oh yeah,” thinking it comes from us. In other words, God rewards us for letting God reward us. That is worth noticing, maybe even for the rest of our lives.

Are we ever completely ready to echo God’s “yes”? Probably not, but I am convinced that the struggle is good and even necessary. Struggle carves out the space within us for deep desire. God both creates the desire and fulfills it. Our job is to be the desiring. For God to work in our lives, our fiat, like Mary’s “Let it be done unto me, according to your word” (Luke 1:38), is still essential."

Song: Gabriel's Message (VOCES8)

https://youtu.be/1h03VhwWEGM?si=pvUWc-2WEZ2IlzEb

"Each one of us must say yes for our own lives. We are asked if we will surrender what we are, our humanity, our flesh and blood, to the Holy Spirit and allow Christ to fill the emptiness formed by the particular shape of our life. The surrender that is asked of us includes complete an absolute trust. We shall not be asked to become extraordinary. To surrender all that we are, as we are, to the Spirit of Love in order that our lives may bear Christ into the world—that is what we shall be asked."

–adapted from Reed of God, Caryll Houselander

Prayer (Jan Richardson)

You hollow us out, God,

so that we may carry you,

and you endlessly fill us

only to be emptied again.

Make smooth our inward spaces

and study,

that we may hold you

with less resistance

and bear you

with deeper grace.

For reflection:

What would help you create an empty space for what is waiting to be birthed in you, right in the midst of your "ordinary" life? Perhaps this Advent, you can spend time with one of the many images of Mary and the Angel Gabriel, and simply be still and empty.

(The scriptures say that Mary held these things in her heart and pondered them. The word "ponder" comes from the Latin word "pondus" which means "weight." Mary held the weight of what she had heard and seen. You might like to choose something rather heavy, like a rock or other item in your home, and hold it while you ponder the encounter between the angel and Mary, and consider how it speaks to your life.)
How does it feel to imagine God's "yes" already abiding in you, and your "yes" simply "seconding the motion"? Can you spend some time imagining this mutual "yes" between you and God? Is there a grace you would like to ask God for?
Richard Rohr encourages us that even if we struggle to say "yes" to God, the struggle can create space for our deep desire. Rohr says that "our job is to be the desiring." What is this like for you to hear? Do you have a sense of what this "deep desire" might be?