“The God Already Present and Active”
Fr Asaeli Raass SVD
The truth is: God is already with us.
It is just that we don’t always recognise His presence to know God’s hand at work in our lives and in the lives of others.
A few days ago I attended a pre-Xmas lunch organised by a Baptist Church community for the residents of a Nursing Home at Yallamba, NSW. One of our retired missionaries is currently being looked after by the staff whose mission is boldly printed on a wall ‘Your Care Our Passion’.
I cast my gaze on the twenty elderly residents at different levels of care and needs all gathered in one place. A choir was singing the classical Christmas carol ‘Silent while I made myself comfortable.
My heart suddenly became alert.
Right in front of me was an Anglo-Saxon elderly woman in her nineties who was being spoon-fed by an Asian man in his early twenties. The contrast could not be greater: elderly Anglo- Saxon - woman– wrinkled face – lack of physical strength on the one hand, a young man, dark Asian, well-built on the other. The young man is obviously a care giver who has decided to make the most of his life situation, giving his service of love in a nursing home. Like a sunflower following the movements of the sun, I entrusted myself to what I am seeing and sensing within.
Then it began to dawn on me that the God-With-Us/Emmanuel (Is 7:14) is taking expression in this simple yet profound act of feeding another human being. Of course, this was not a spectacular sight to behold but in any given situation, the personal awakening comes from paying close attention. God, there and then, had assumed the poverty and vulnerability of the elderly woman, while the young care giver has assumed the saving, loving and liberating God who shares our pain and hope. It is true, the Incarnation of Christ has resulted in bringing together of blacks and whites, the young and the old, the poor and rich, ox and ass and the whole of humankind.
It was a moment in time for me just to sit and wonder.
There was no moment of consolation but, rather, a knowing beyond doubt that God was present and active in this nursing home. There was the invitation to simply entrust myself entirely to this God-given moment. Somehow I was led by the Holy Spirit to watch again, to allow the gift of God’s grace to move me beyond the surface.
As I continued to watch this act of giving and receiving, I was then reminded of the name of my congregation, namely the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), in the light of the Incarnation and mission of the Divine Word made flesh, to look attentively and lovingly at the world of the one Triune God. From this viewpoint the need and condition of the human dwellers at Yallamba takes on a different aspect, not the one my human eyes would suggest.
It is so easy to look and walk away from places such as a nursing home, a psychiatric hospital, prisons and unwashed peoples lying on the streets. But then the Son of God walked straight into our world with all its afflictions, anxieties, warring ideologies and injustices and sought a place to be born and dwell. Let’s not forget that God availed himself of an unknown Jewish girl who lived in a town unknown to Sacred Scriptures.
Moreover, the prologue of John’s Gospel (John 1:1-18) challenges us to view the world as it is, warts and all! Indeed, the Mystery, we call God, has entered this concrete, historical world and became completely human in the persons of an elderly woman and a young care-giver, for my sakes, for our sakes.
As I continued to marvel at this experience, I was again painfully led to the final hours before my dad died early last year. Once more, I entrusted myself to the surfacing of my memories and the Holy Spirit’s promptings.
Dad was 87.Tired, weary and a tremendous pain had infected his entire body. He was lying in bed and could not move. He was just there waiting for someone to bring him his food. ‘Where are my children?’ he might have wondered. But words could not come out of his dry mouth. My dad was hungry but he had no more strength in him. He was thirsty but he could not say it. He laid in bed waiting.
And then a young lady turned up.
Gently and lovingly, she took a spoonful of sweet soup and put it into his mouth. Dad swallowed it. He simply smiled. The young lady was my younger sister. Like Mary, the Mother of God, she had cooperated in the mystery of the Incarnation in the simplest way. The picture of my sister’s hand feeding our dad a few hours before he died would be forever etched on my mind. It was for me another profound expression of the Word made flesh.
My father died helpless and powerless. He died the way he came. However he died with an experience of abandonment into the hands of my sister, my mother and members of my family. Jesus too was born in utter defencelessness, dressed in swaddling clothes in a manger and in total surrender to his mother Mary and Joseph. He lived and died precisely the way he was born, allowing himself completely into the hands of His Father.
Friends, to celebrate Christmas is as simple as feeding a dying parent or an elderly person in a nursing home, giving a small donation to the needy, praying for someone and offering to sing a lullaby to a crying baby. And it’s as simple as offering a smile, as simple as a profound sympathy. Yet the challenge lies before us to listen to the truth way beyond our everyday human experience and understanding.
As we approach the 25th of December, let us graciously allow our hearts to have confidence in what it sees and to entrust ourselves to it especially in the small humble gifts of love and service we give to one another. Perhaps the time is now to make this mystery become present to others, and to allow ourselves touched by God’s graciousness.
I am a witness and fellow bearer of this wonder and joy of Christmas. Merry Xmas.