Tis the season to be jolly … and hopeful … and patient. Once again, we find ourselves at the start of a new liturgical year in the season of Advent. As the nights grow longer, a winter chill fills the air, and animals retreat into hibernation, we too join the natural world in waiting for warmth and new life to return in the spring. However, we know that this takes time, so we must be patient and live into the darkness and anticipation.
Advent is a time when we prepare for the arrival of Christ in the world. Similarly, it’s an ideal time to reflect on what is being birthed in our lives. What seeds are germinating in the soil of our hearts and minds, waiting to sprout into new life? Change and newness are always accompanied by a range of emotions: excitement, anxiety, confusion. It’s important to take note of these feelings, to sit with them, because discernment begins with awareness. Once we become aware of what we’re feeling, we can begin to talk with God about where this might be calling us.
Discernment can be a long, winding road, but we must be patient and trust that God is with us on the journey, lighting our path and guiding our steps. There’s a prayer by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, that I find especially helpful during these times of waiting and wondering. I invite you to pray with it throughout this season and to embrace the call of Advent to slow down, be aware, and be patient.
Patient Trust
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
