Introduction
As I first sat down with this devotional, I was hesitant. I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready for it. Full disclosure – I’m never really ready for what God has in store for me. I’m always excited to hear from Him, but I don’t always want to do what He asks of me. At a recent gathering with friends we even joked about me needing a T-shirt that says, “I will, but I don’t want to!” Like God doesn’t already know my heart…
I know God uses everything, so I went ahead and jumped in knowing that He was going to use this stubbornness to help me grow. I began thumbing through the pages, and the first thing that caught my attention was the suggestion to “pray with any resistance you might have…!” And so it began.
The purpose of this blog series is to both walk through this devotional with you as you are on the ADVENTure with a small group or individually and to allow those who were not able to purchase a copy to share in this beautiful journey.
What makes this ADVENTure different is the focus on Visio Divina, the art of praying with pictures. It is a way to enter the holy season through images. I hope you follow along with me on my personal pilgrimage of sorts, and I pray that you and I both develop an even closer and deeper relationship with our Lord as Mary did so many centuries ago.
As you begin your time in prayer, settle in. Get in a comfortable yet attentive position. Acknowledge that you are in the presence of the Lord.
Offer this time to Him. Offer yourself to Him. Offer your imagination to Him.
Ask God to grant you what you need for today. Ask Him to show you clearly and to help you receive it openly.
In this opening week, we have 2 images to sit with. This first one was painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch in 1890 entitled The Annunciation.
Before we examine the first image, let us reflect on what calling is presenting itself to you as this holy season of Advent begins.
God, you placed this calling on my heart. In return, I place it back into your hands
with the hope that you mold and shape me into the person you lovingly created me to be.
When I look at Bloch’s image, I am immediately drawn to the bright, ethereal glow of the Archangel Gabriel and how that light reflects so beautifully on Mary’s turned face. I also notice the deeper, richer colors surrounding Mary. There is a warmth and gentleness in Gabriel’s face as He speaks to her. To me it appears that this scene may be in the moments just before Mary’s fiat when she is asking, “How can this be?”
As Robin Hebert points out in the introduction, I wonder if, even for a split second, Mary “agonized over her future, of what God was going to demand of her. After all, she was human, a real person of faith, a faith that like ours, would be tested over and over again.”
As I continue to reflect, Robin’s words catch my attention again. She says, “I am struck by the thought that in the milliseconds of fear and resistance as the future sacrifices flashed through her mind, she grew into herself. The fourteen-year-old maiden became a woman…in an instant.”
The sounds of my own words reverberate between my ears. “I will, but I don’t want to.” Those are the words of stubborn, immature resistance. I don’t want that to be my answer to God when He is asking me for something infinitely smaller than being the Mother of Christ, the Mother of us all. I want to respond with the powerful words of the woman Mary became in that instant. “Let it be done.” And I want to participate fully in whatever He wants to birth through me.
I take in a deep breath, and as I exhale, I silently pray, “Let your will be done, Lord.”
Week 1: Preparing Our Hearts through Sacred Emptiness
Read and pray with Luke 1: 26-31
Robin recalls the imagery used in a book by Caryll Houselander The Reed of God. “There is in every human heart an empty cradle waiting for the birth of Christ to fill it… Mary’s emptiness, and the emptiness to which we are invited to embrace is fertile and spacious, alive with possibility, as a womb is ripe for a child to come.”
Houselander goes on to describe our Lady’s emptiness with a “warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird.”
As I look at Jerry Leleux’s image of the empty manger, I wonder if the manger of my heart, my nest, is ready to receive the Divine Little Bird that is Our Lord.
Lord, this is a calling that you’ve placed upon my heart. I have a strong desire to receive you completely into my heart, the center of my being, my soul. Help me to surrender this resistance and fear that prevents me from opening my arms to you without reserve.
The reflection questions ask me where I am lacking contentment in my life? Where am I dissatisfied and complaining? This is something that applies to a few areas in my life, and I journaled about it to gain more clarity. However, when I take in these two holy images together, I see that because Mary moved from the worry and concern for her future self, through her confidence and security in God, we – some 2,000 years later – are a changed people. I am a changed person. How much more will I be changed, renewed, if I do my part to remove the resistance that sits within me?
We are also asked to consider:
Praying with any resistance you might have towards emptying the areas where the Lord
might be inviting you to make room for Him.
Begin Advent with a good confession.
Compose a prayer of gratitude to the Lord I your journal. Look especially at those
areas you suffer over wanting more. Look with appreciation at the gifts that lie before
you.
May you be filled with His Love and Light,
Leah
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