Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over a many quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Christ, in His tremendous free gift of the liturgy, given for our consolation, for our right up-building (or edification), for our correct formation of those acts we must necessarily give back to Him—our religion—, He has given us this day at least the single lesson of learning to listen, to long for, to hope for that one thing just out of sight. That one thing that informs all our actions along the way, that permeates the very air of our living now, which stirs up inside us groaning’s comparable to that of the sighs of all of creation, understood by the Spirit and encouraged by the same, awaiting us at the end of all things, and drawing us quietly along the weary way.
Christ has asked us to hope for what we do not yet see, for to see it is to have it. Christ has asked us to wait for it with an eagerness of a mother in travail for her child; to plant it like a mustard seed in the ground and long for the large bush that will come so as to give shade and shelter to the birds of the sky; to knead it like yeast into flour constantly working and attentive until finally the whole batch of dough is leavened; to suffer now in the darkness with a mind that looks for the first rays of the dawning of the next day. For today is merely the hallowed eve of the glory that is to be revealed for us—in us.
Christ this day has asked us to live in time as though we already breathed the air of eternity. That end, that happy and glorious new day, that “revelation of the children of God,” is what must move us to act now, what must permeate our daily decisions so as to keep us stirred up for the adoption, the redemption of our very bodies. All of creation is groaning…even until now …in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in our freedom, in our redemption, in our glorious and perfect eternal rest. If every creature around us is and has been anxiously longing for its own freedom from the bondage of corruption, how can we rest here in complacency? How can we find our comfort here? How could we spend all our energies avoiding every ounce of suffering and pain and not eagerly join in the movement of all the created order, regardless of the cost, and let ourselves be swept swiftly back to the Creator?
Saint Clement reminded us this morning in the Divine Office:
Consider, beloved, how the Lord keeps reminding us of the resurrection that is to come… In this hope, then, let our hearts be bound fast to Him who is faithful in His promises and just in His judgement. …let our faith in Him be awakened; let us reflect that everything is close to Him.
Everything is close to Him…
Christ has placed us so very close to the brink of eternity. The morrow in nigh. He has drawn us right up to His eternal abode and asks only that we wait there a little while yet. He will come on that last day, as He comes in many little ways every day, as a visitor knocking on our door, the chamber of our hearts. Will we have been made ready for that visitation? Will we stir in a fright at that gentle rapping? Will we let that moment pass by in our stupor of self-satisfaction? Or will we readily accept our glorious adoption and resurrection into Christ? For He comes to give us nothing but His entire self.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over a many quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door –
Only this and nothing more.”
