Anglican hermit Maggie Ross describes an experience of God’s indwelling presence:
December is the season of Advent, the time of expectancy, of hushed hearts and quiet waiting. And though many Christians don’t make too much of her, it is the season of Mary.… One day I had my own annunciation. The raked winter sun was streaming through the east window of the hermitage, illuminating various items stuck on the rough sawn wall, including a little icon of our Lady of Guadalupe….
As the angled shaft of light set the icon on fire … I realized that the angel was greeting not only her but also me; that the intimacy of bread made God and God made Bread was possible only because of her obedience; that sacrament is the earthly and tangible culmination of her yes and our yes to participate in the fact of the Incarnation.
Annunciations are events of infinite and immense silence, for all that the Gospel records of conversation. The walls or scenery push back, become transparent to reveal all that is, was, will be, and then converge within.
That morning I came to understand that it is by baptism that we say, “Be it unto me according to your Word,” to bear that Word by the power of the Holy Spirit, and to bring it to fruition in our lives. It’s difficult to describe the impact of sunlight on a piece of printed paper stuck to fiberboard, and the insight may seem obvious, but it shook me to the heart.
Inspired by a Gospel passage about being “born again” (John 3:1–21), Ross recognizes how she is born anew through her yes to God’s invitation:
I took another step when the story of Nicodemus was read at the Eucharist the morning I was to leave for retreat at a Cistercian abbey. His question, “How shall this be?” awoke the echoing voices of Mary and Zechariah, of Abraham and Sarah’s laughter over God’s preposterous proposal that he at a hundred years, and she in her nineties would bear a son.…
To bear the Word, to enter the kingdom, we must indeed be born from the Spirit, not for the second time in the womb of our natural mothers, but continually in the love of the Mother of God that brought forth her son, and like her, in the same movement, to bear Christ as well. Mary, then, is my mother in this second birth, just as she is for Nicodemus.
That my heart is still not big enough to encompass this paradox I readily admit. I still feel unease about Mary sometimes…. But if nothing else, Mary has taught me to say yes: as Abraham and Sarah said yes, as Elizabeth and Zechariah said yes, as Jesus said yes to the cup that did not pass from him.
And each time that cup is passed to me at the Eucharist, I look into its depths beyond the dark wine shimmering gold and, trembling, I say, “yes.”
Reference:
Maggie Ross, The Fire of Your Life (New York: Seabury Books, 2007), 8, 11–12, 13.
Image credit and inspiration: Susan Wilkinson, Untitled (detail), 2021, acrylic paint, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Just like the colors swirl together in this painting, we and God swirl in our dwelling/indwelling.
Story from Our Community:
When my daughter was six months pregnant during Advent, I understood a new version of Mary. She was a young mother, dealing with enormous responsibility. The angel Gabriel encouraged her to get closer to Elizabeth, an older woman who was carrying her own baby, John the Baptist. Mary must have felt such relief to be accepted and nurtured by another woman during that time of uncertainty. I will be reflecting on all the young people who are looking for comfort and guidance, regardless of whether they act within or outside traditional and cultural norms.
—Ayleen R.
