Waiting for Jesus

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We are told in St. Luke, "Through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79).

Jesus is the Dawn who gives light to our existence. If we want everything we do to have any meaning, it must be done with reference to Him.

In a very special and extraordinary way, Our Lady's life centers around Jesus—and especially so on this, the eve of her Son's birth. We can hardly begin to have any idea of what the spirit of recollection within her soul was like.

She was always recollected, pondering these things carefully in her heart. And that's how we have to learn to be.

We can be aware of the fact that our thoughts can be so dissipated and how we can be distracted by things of little importance.

Only one thing is really important in our lives: Jesus, and everything that refers to Him.

Again and again, we're told in Scripture how aware Our Lady was of that: “His mother kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:19,51). The evangelists refer to Our Lady's attitude towards these events as they occurred.

She ponders and meditates. She understands that interior spirit of recollection which enables her to evaluate and to keep in her heart all the happenings of her life, whether they be great or small.

Deep within her, enriched by the fullness of grace, reigns that preternatural harmony for which man was created. There's no better place to preserve and to ponder on that exceptional divine action in the world to which Our Lady bears witness.

After original sin, the soul lost its dominion over the senses, and its natural orientation towards the things of God. It was not so in Our Lady; but it is in us.

In her, who had been preserved from original sin, everything was harmony, as at the beginning of creation. She was also adorned by the presence, altogether singular and extraordinary, of the Blessed Trinity in her soul.

Mary is always at prayer because she does everything with reference to her Son. When she talks to Jesus she prays because prayer is to talk to God. She prays each time she looks at Him. That's prayer too—to look with faith at Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, truly present in the tabernacle.

She prays when she asks Him for something or whenever she smiles at Him, which she does so often, or when she thinks about Him. Her life was determined by Jesus, and her thoughts were set permanently on Him.

Her interior spirit of recollection was constant. Her prayer blended with her very life, with her work and with her attention towards others. Her interior silence was richness, fullness, and contemplation.

Today we can ask her to give us this interior spirit of recollection, which is necessary if we are to see and to talk to God, who is also very close to our lives.

The Entrance Antiphon of the evening Mass of December 24 says, “Today you will know. that the Lord will come and save us, and tomorrow you will see his glory” (cf. Ex. 16: 6-7).

On the eve of her Son's birth, Our Lady encourages us never to neglect prayer, which is conversation with Our Lord. Without prayer, we are lost; with it we are strong and are able to carry out our tasks.

St. John Paul II said, “Among other reasons, we must pray too because we are fragile and culpable. We need to admit humbly and truly that we are poor creatures, with confused ideas...We are fragile and weak, and in constant need of interior strength and consolation. Prayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, our charity, our purity, our generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness.

“Prayer gives light by which to see and to judge from God’s perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up praying! Don’t let a day go by without praying a little! Prayer is a duty, but it is also a joy because it is a dialogue with God through Jesus Christ!” (John Paul II, Audience with Young People, Mar. 14, 1979).

We have to learn to come closer to Our Lord through mental prayer—those moments which we dedicate to talking to Him quietly about our concerns, thanking Him, asking for His help, or simply being with Him. Through vocal prayer, too, perhaps prayers sometimes that we learned as children.

Never in our lives will we meet anyone who listens with as much interest or as much attention as Jesus. Nobody has ever taken our words as seriously as He has. He looks at us. He pays attention to us. He listens to us with the greatest interest when we pray.

Prayer always enriches us—even in that silent dialogue before the tabernacle in which we do not use any words. It's enough to watch and to feel ourselves watched.

This is very different from the verbosity of many people, who say nothing because they have nothing to communicate. We are told in Scripture, “From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34).

If our heart is empty, what can our lips say? If we are sick with envy or sensuality, what content will the dialogue have? Nevertheless, we always come away from our prayer with more light, greater joy, more strength.

Being able to pray is one of the greatest gifts a man has. To talk to and to be listened to by his Creator! To talk to Him and call Him Friend!

In our prayer we have to talk very simply to Our Lord. St. Teresa of Ávila says, “To think and to understand what we are saying, and to whom we are saying it. Who are we who dare to speak to such a great Lord, to think these and other similar things about how little we have served him and how much we are obliged to serve—this is mental prayer” (St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection).

Some people may think that prayer is something extraordinarily difficult, or that it's just for special people. But in the Gospels we see people of very different backgrounds approaching Our Lord with confidence: Nicodemus. Bartimaeus, the children whom Our Lord particularly likes to be with—a mother, a father who has a sick child, a thief, the Wise Men, Anna and Simeon, his friends of Bethany. All of them, and now we, speak to God.

What matters in prayer is perseverance and good dispositions; among them faith and humility. We can't come to our prayer like the Pharisee in that parable meant for some who “trusted in themselves...and despised others.”

As we are told in St. Luke, “The Pharisee stood and prayed with himself, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the other men, extortioners...I fast twice a week...’” (Luke 18:9-14).

We can see straight away that the Pharisee entered the temple without any love. He is the center of his thoughts and the object of his own estimation. Consequently, instead of praising God, he praises himself. There's no love in his prayer, no charity, no humility. He doesn't need God.

On the other hand, with our mind fixed on the person we're talking to, we can learn a lot from the prayer of the tax collector, who is humble, attentive, and confident. We try not to make it a monologue in which we just think about ourselves, recalling situations without referring them to God, failing to control our imagination.

Because he lacked humility, the Pharisee left the temple without having prayed. Even in that, his hidden pride manifested itself.

Our Lord asks us for simplicity, to acknowledge our faults, and to talk about what is of interest to us and to Him.

We’re told in The Way, “You write: ‘To pray is to talk with God, but about what?’ About him, about yourself: joys, sorrows, successes, and failures, noble ambitions, daily worries, weaknesses! And acts of thanksgiving and petitions, and love and reparation. In a word, to get to know him and to get to know yourself: to get acquainted” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 901).

In Point 92 of The Way, St. Josemaría says, “And in my meditation, a fire shall flame out. That is why you go to pray: to become a bonfire, a living flame, giving heat and light. So, when you're not able to go on, when you feel that your fire is dying out, if you cannot throw on it sweet-smelling logs, throw on the branches and twigs of short vocal prayers and aspirations, to keep the bonfire burning. And you will not have wasted your time.”

Particularly at the beginning, and again at certain times, it can be helpful to use a book in our prayer, as a cripple uses crutches, so as to make progress in prayer. Many saints did just that.

St. Teresa of Ávila says, "If it was not just after receiving Holy Communion, I never dared to start the prayer without a book; my soul feared being at prayer without a book, as though I were going to fight a great crowd of people. With this remedy, which was like a companion or a shield which could receive the blows of so many thoughts, I felt consoled” (St. Teresa, Life).

We should habitually conclude our prayer with definite resolutions to improve. We can ask Our Lord sincerely: What do you want of me in this particular thing that I've been considering? How can I improve now in this virtue? What resolution should I make to carry out your Will in the next few months?

Nobody in this world has known how to talk to Jesus as Our Lady did, and next to Our Lady, St. Joseph, who must have spent long hours gazing at Him, talking to Him, simply being in His company, and venerating Him.

St. Teresa of Ávila says, “If anyone cannot find a teacher to teach him how to pray, let him take this glorious saint as his teacher, the master of the interior life, and he will not stray from the path” (ibid).

One person who was very much present there in Bethlehem, in the background, but helping this whole enterprise of the Incarnation take place, is St. Joseph. He's changing the atmosphere, changing the environment. He's creating the atmosphere of a home that has to be the model for all Christian homes for all eternity. His role is very important.

On this night of nights, it's a good opportunity for fathers to consider their vocation and mission. A father has to develop first and foremost in the family environment. This is our first apostolate: praying about our home; asking St. Joseph for help; creating that atmosphere; having a generous cooperation with the plans of God, sacrificing our likes and dislikes.

Joseph doesn't make any noise, but yet he's enormously effective. When we contemplate him and his role in these hours, we see that he's very silent, but full of a spirit of service.

His whole journey for Nazareth has been a service, thinking about Our Lady: How can I make her more comfortable? He finds his joy and his fulfillment in that service, irrespective of what it may be costing him himself.

He's full of faithfulness. He has full acceptance of the Will of God, in all the different ways that that Will comes to him. And that Will of God demands from him a lot of flexibility, a lot of initiative, a lot of capacity to solve problems, to put up with difficulties and contradictions, fortitude.

But he's very focused. He forgets himself. He's a pillar. He's humble. He's the just man, fully trusting the plans of God. He gives us a great example of the manliness, of availability.

He reminds us to have a great sense of responsibility and to have initiative and patience in solving the problems and bringing up our children, and thinking ahead, and in seeing each one of our children and our spouse as the treasures that Our Lord has placed in our hands, and our primary mission is focused there.

St. Joseph teaches us how to live like a great human being. He seems to say to us that in the way that you foster the family atmosphere of Christmas on this night and in the coming days, that's what your children are going to take with them when it comes to forming their homes.

God is going to judge us on the effort we've put into this, in building the families of the future. This is a great night to have a lot of supernatural outlook, to focus on the supernatural work entailed in forming a home and the fountain of sanctification that lies hidden in your conjugal duties.

St. Josemaría in The Forge, Point 692, says, “And I also tell them: you Christian mothers and fathers are a great spiritual motor, sending the strength of God to your own ones, strength for that struggle, strength to win, strength to be saints. Don't let them down.”

These are good hours to pray for each family member, to pray for their heart and their soul. Thank God for all the spiritual and human lessons you've been able to give them over the past twelve months so that they breathe in this family atmosphere that you want their lives to be guided by and molded by, so that their families can be the great family that you dream that it one day will be.

The family is the setting in which to transmit the faith and to grow humanly. The wonderful words that Pope St. John Paul II has used to describe the family could well be in our thoughts tonight: “It's the school of virtue...the school of deeper humanity” (John Paul II, Familiaris consortio, Nov. 22, 1981, Points 36,37,42,43; Gaudium et spes, Point 52).

We could try to think about all the extra little work or jobs to be done in the family and the home these days—that children might be very much part of that. Having things to do. Children love to serve. And to have our whole family life very focused on the crib—perhaps saying two or three Hail Marys every night before the crib, building up the piety of your children around that representation that leads us into the stable in Bethlehem.

John Paul II called the family the “sanctuary of life” (John Paul II, Encyclicals, Evangelium vitae, March 25, 1995 and Centesimus annus, May 1, 1991), the school of love, the school of the soul. We're here to build “a civilization of love” (John Paul II, Letter to Families, February 2, 1994; Apostolic Letter, Salvifici doloris, Point 30, February 11, 1984; Catechesis, June 8, 1994). All these words are very relevant on this night of nights,

We can thank St. Joseph for the beauty of the family and for our family vocation, and see how important that is in the whole plans of God for the evangelization of the world.

We can think of the heroic Christian witness that God wants us to give within the family, facing any problems we might have with great faith and trust and confidence in God, which is how St. Joseph faced those problems on this Christmas night.

St. Joseph teaches us that little things are important, the fulfillment of our ordinary little duties, the little details of being in the home as much as possible during these days and hours.

The importance of being present for family gatherings, and being present also in gatherings of the more extended family, so that we are there for the others, so that we're easy to live with, because we take care of all of these things.

St. Joseph puts his heart on the ground so that Our Lady can walk easier. His virtues are like the grain of wheat fallen into the ground which have produced an abundant harvest (John 12:24)—like the mustard seed (Matt. 13:13-21)—over the many centuries since.

He seems to say to us that we have to be a family man 24/7, to be thinking family-wide: grandparents, household, people who work within the domain of the family—that we have room for every family person during this time. And particularly thinking, is there any member of my extended family who might be a little bit alone these days?

St. Josemaría in The Forge, Point 689, says, “You should be full of wonder at the goodness of Our Father God. Are you not filled with joy to know that your home, your family, your country, which you love so much, are the raw material which you must sanctify?”

In Point 691 he says, “Each child that God grants you is a wonderful blessing from Him. Don't be afraid of children!”

We could be aware in these hours that Our God, in His deepest mystery, is not a solitary being. But he's a family: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God's inner life then is paternity, filiation, and the essence of the family, which is love.

Charity is always manifested by order. Order in our affections. Trust is the refinement of charity. No way of acting proper to any family.

We see how Joseph was very flexible. able to handle the changes in plans and the difficulties. Nothing is achieved by rigidity.

He teaches us that love is wanting life's best for others, even though that may not include us.

We can ask him to help us to be compassionate with the compassion of Christ and His Mother. May we show to others the pity and the understanding and the mercy that has been shown to us.

St. Josemaría liked to point out that “in Bethlehem, nobody holds anything back” (Letter, February 14, 1974). It's all a story of total self-giving. A phrase that John Paul II liked very much.

These are special days for fathers to lead through virtue, to give an awful lot of example to our family members of what it means to be a leader in the most important aspects of life.

Somebody said once, the greatest failure of a man is to fail as a father, and the greatest thing a man can do for his family is to love his wife very much.

As we look in on this great event of the Incarnation that is taking place, we can turn to St. Joseph, the master of the interior life. Nobody in the world knew how to talk to Jesus as Our Lady did, and next to His Mother, St. Joseph, who must have spent long hours gazing at Him, talking to Him, simply being in His company, and venerating Him.

[St. Bernadette Soubirous] says, “If anyone cannot find a teacher to teach him how to pray, let him take this glorious saint as his teacher and he will not stray from the path.” As we finish our prayer, we contemplate Joseph very close to Mary. He's full of consideration and attention towards her. Jesus is about to be born. Joseph has prepared that stable as well as he could.

We can ask him to help us prepare our souls so that we're not dissipated and distracted when we have Jesus so close to us.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JOSH