Virgin. Again.
Author: Andrew Comiskey
December 03, 2023
Virgin.
Again.
‘If
the essence of Advent is expectancy, it is also a readiness for action:
watchfulness for every opening, and willingness to risk everything for freedom
and a new beginning’ (editors, Watch for the Light).
Sara
laughing. Zechariah booming. Saul becoming Paul, Peter a Rock.
Advent
is about change: a jumpstart on the New Year to resolve to do ’24 better. Broken
by ’23? Consider yourself rich soil for Jesus, with Father using pressure to
plow that seed deep. This Sunday—the first day of Advent—marks the start of
the Church year and your chance to be virgin again. Christ has come, is coming,
will come. Yes, we welcome the Babe at Christmas and yes, He will return larger-than-life,
eyes blazing like fire to raze our disorder and raise up an undivided house for
God.
In
the meantime, Jesus rouses us in Spirit: ‘Be watchful! Be alert! May I not come
and find you sleeping’ (Mk. 13:33, 36-37). The miracle of Christ-with-us requires
many mundane ‘yeses,’ like a bride primping for her groom, or a soldier
awaiting orders on a battlefield. It applies to us corporately as members of
one Body and personally. Our prayer? ‘Expose and rout our dullness, O God! Make
us virgin again.’
The
other day, burdened by many things, I wanted to check out, to deflect the
light with fantasy lovers. Ugh. Not a life sign. First the thought, then
arousal, then…nothing new under the sun. I don’t scandalize myself; I can act
wisely before I do. I’ve good friends
who know my syncopated rhythm; in truth, they know how to pray when I ask for
help. Holy Spirit prompted me to act and the Spirit in them set order in me. I
woke up. I checked-in, not out, and was rescued. I cycled through the day uninterrupted
by uncleanness, guided by sweet chastity. Virgin. Again.
This
new year, starting today, may the Spirit soften our clay—make us malleable, reshape-able,
wet putty in God’s hands once more. ‘Oh, that You would rend the heavens and
come down…You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember Your
ways. But when we violated Your ways, You were angry. How then can we be
saved?...Yet, O Lord, You are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter;
we are the work of Your hands’ (Is. 64:1, 5, 8).
What
glorious news Advent brings! In Jesus, Father rends the heaven and comes down
to rescue us once more. God avails Himself; are
we watching and waiting for that divine descent? Stay alert—sober—aware of our dodgy
selves but more inclined to their truth—our sensitivity to His stirrings.
We
who live for His coming don’t mind correction. We welcome it. We freely admit
our poverty, our potential for foolish actions, as if we—children of the Light—lived in
darkness. We get wise to ourselves. Echoing Jesus’ warning to stay
awake, St. Paul cries: Watch out! You think you are above falling? You are on the
brink! (1 Cor. 10:12).
Advent invites us to wise up and reposition ourselves in the light
of our soon-coming King. Virgin. Again.
‘What
we need most is to be genuinely shaken, so that where life is grounded, we
would feel its stability, and where life is unstable and uncertain, immoral and
unprincipled, we would know this also and endure it…The one great Advent
question for us is whether we can make it out of the shakings with the resolve:
Yes, arise! It is time to awaken from sleep. It is time for an awakening to
begin somewhere; it is time that someone places things again in the order that they were given by God the Lord’
(Fr.
Alfred Delp, Advent Homily, Munich, Nov. 30th, 1941).
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