Chapter
20
by Fr. Thomas Keating
The Divine Gifts
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was
sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man
named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came
to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But
she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this
might be. The angel said to her, "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, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor
David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there
will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I
am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon
you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child
to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative
Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month
for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with
God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord: let it be
with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
(Luke 1:26-38)
At Christmas time
children are extremely interested in the possibility of receiving presents.
There is a special quality to their expectations that warms the heart. We need
to bring a similar childlike expectance to the liturgy. The Christmas presents
that we share are reminders of the incredible gifts of God. The kingdom of God
is coming. The liturgy really communicates God's love for us, poured out with
extraordinary largesse at each Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.
The common
denominator of sacred history is the grace of Christ. In the Old Testament, this
grace was offered through types of good things to come. In the New Testament,
these types were fulfilled in the person of Jesus. The same grace is now present
in the sacraments and in the Christian community. This fullness of grace is
celebrated by emphasizing certain aspects of the mystery of Christ in the course
of the liturgical year so that we are not overwhelmed by its extraordinary
content and can absorb its unity little by little. Just as we do not survive on
only one enormous meal per week, but take a certain amount of nourishment every
day, so the various feasts of the liturgical year provide us with the fullest
opportunity of assimilating the mystery. Thus faith, hope, and love are
increased by the divine communication by degree, or to use Paul's phrase,
"transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another"
(2 Cor. 3:18).
The liturgy is meant
to be experiential. Everything that we read about in the Old and New Testaments
and all that they symbolize are bestowed not just as information, but as
experience. If we stop at mere instruction, we have missed the banquet. The
scripture readings reveal the special graces of the day that are being offered
for the healing and transformation of every level of our being.
If we come to the
divine gifts of the Christmas liturgy with an open heart and an open mind, they
are transmitted to us. Recall what they are: divine adoption, anticipation of
eternal joy, peace, conformity to Christ, participation in the divine life,
understanding of the divine mysteries. The trials of life are not obstacles to
receiving it, but test the depth of the transmission. Even the greatest
tragedies cannot prevent the triumph of God over suffering. The gifts of the
Christmas liturgy point to the life of Christ welling up within us. The divine
life within us teaches us not only how to receive but how to give.
In this event we
hear how Mary's expectation of her vocation was shattered by the visit of an
angel, warning us that the disintegration of our vision of
life--disappointments, the heartbreaks, rejection, loneliness, confusion--are
port of the preparation for the fullness of our vocation. God never takes
anything from us without giving us something better. Sacred history is about how
God prepared his people in order to give them the fullness of grace in Christ.
Now that this fullness has come, our responsibility is to unpackage the
incredible graces that the human family has received and of which we are now the
stewards. Our personal history becomes sacred history.
The light, life, and
love of God is available in the measure of our receptivity. Each year as we
celebrate this opening to the gifts of God, we open more of ourselves to the
Lord.
More information can be obtained by reading the
book The Kingdom of God is Like . . .by Fr. Thomas Keating. It is offered
in our Book
Store.
