Monday, December 12, 2011

Luke 1:26-38

I'm home! Back in Texas!

I remember thinking about this gospel earlier today, and I had an entirely different thought about it that I now can't remember. But what I'm thinking about with this story actually fits nicely with the growing theme of this Advent season - probably ALL the Advent seasons, come to that. The call.

If nothing else, the utter strangeness of it. Because Mary had an idea of how her life would go. She had an honorable life where she felt she would do good and serve God. And He had other plans for her. Plans that, for the moment, looked like they would completely preclude any part of the life she had planned.

There's a joke: life is what happens when you were busy making other plans. Or take: Man plans; God laughs.

But how many of us really have that abrupt a call? Or do we all?

The first thing that Mary registers is confusion - which: justified. A being of spirit and light appears before you - and your first thought isn't angel or some holy purpose, or the opposite to suspect a devil or a ghost. It's confusion. It's wondering if your friends are playing a prank. It's looking for some kind of worldly explanation.

And the thing about the call is that there isn't one. And you knew the moment you felt it. You know, when you look on an angel, that it is an angel. A hundred thoughts run through your head because you are in denial of what you know. Because to know what you know would change your life forever.

We know - Father Rolo said. We know we are called to greatness - to miracles. We know we are called to completely upend our lives at a moment's notice.

That's why we are afraid to admit we know. That's why even the most blessed among us had a moment of confusion.

Because we work hard at being the best we know how. We work at serving God, at finding His path for us through our hands and our hearts and our minds plugging steadily away. And then He appears with a flash of light, an inspiration, or a small but insistent voice in our hearts - and it's all over. The lives we had planned - they weren't for us.

And His plan is better - but damn, that's gotta be a hard moment. When the most blessed among our species said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." The same woman who would later instruct us in turn, "Do whatever He tells you." Even if it means filling our fine wine barrels with water. The second vintage will outshine the first.

May we all be so blessed to answer so well.