Keep the flame of desire alive!
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Have you understood what the standard phrase, “God, one world without end” means? Is it that God always moves forward and is never satisfied with the age that has passed, that Got is always looking towards what’s new? Now, we are at the end of the 20th century (Florin is speaking in 1996) and it seems that even now we are preparing for the 3rd Millenium. The 21st century God is the God who is ahead and leading the way. He would like that to change. The day’s prayer says, “God, one world without end, keep us watching, waiting for the joy of your Son’s arrival.” Now we will move forward and it seems that there is no-one in the lead to take us, but starting from the end of the world, Christ will appear everywhere and say, as St Therese, child of Jesus explains, “Come on, come, travel further with me, even further, ever better.”
But there is another end of the world, and you do not need to wait for it. This end of the world is now already here in this liturgy. All the grace that arrives in the secret of imagination, of memory, of profound belief, of the willingness to decide, this is an end of the world. We must honour God’s graces, His resplendence and inspiration as if they were the end of the story. Each of the blessings we receive is both a coming to an end and at the same time the start of something new.
Look how Mary, on the day of the Annunciation was shaken by what happened to her. She received him. She understood what she had to do. She asked the right questions and when she fully understood and trusted in what was asked of her, she gave herself and moved forwards. For Mary, this was a first end of the world. She would go from one end of the world to another end of the world and I mean “in the plural”. Cana was a new end of the world for Mary. The healing of the invalid at Bethesda in John chapter 5 is a new end of the world. The story of Martha and Mary in Bethany is a new end of the world. The parable of the prodigal son is a new end of the world and for the disciples who were listening and the scribes and pharaohs who questioned it.
Every blessing is something that’s surprising, which questions the past, which opens towards the future and asks us to go with it. God is the One who, always moving, asks us to join him. It’s as if he was taking the hands of the people on his left and on his right and saying, “Will you come with me?” That is the end of the world and that is how the past has continually been overcome. “Watch,” said Saint-Marc “Keep watch! Keep your lamp lighted,” as God will never leave you in peace. If you are at peace in your life, then you are outside of the ways of God. God is always moving. He starts over. He's never satisfied.
Let’s look at a short passage from the end of Teilhard de Chardin’s book, “The Divine Milieu” (p.181 Pocket edition)
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“Historically, waiting has been like a beacon, that’s never stopped guiding the progress of our Faith. The Israelites were perpetually “waiting” and the first Christian's too.” This is one of the reasons why, in the primitive Church, the wait which preceded the Sunday liturgy was a vigil of waiting.
“Christmas should, it seems, turn our thoughts to the past, but it only serves to move them even further forward.” Another Christmas is coming, it is ahead of us all and it is the end of the world, and, in the sense that I explained earlier, it is the unexpected coming, surprising, full of blessing and resplendence that renews us.
“As soon as he appeared among us,” continues Teilhard, “The Messiah allowed himself to be seen and felt, only to be lost once more, more resplendent and more ineffable in the depths of the future. He came. But now, we must wait once more, again - not simply a chosen few (Mary and Joseph) but all mankind - more than ever. The Lord Jesus will only come quickly if we wait for him very much.” It is the intention of desire that speeds up his arrival. If Mary had not had a heart of fire, the Son of God would not have been incarnated within her, as God cannot assault the doors of humanity. This is why, if the Church is not oriented towards a true final of the story, there will never be one. It crawls ever more slowly, and once again, the 21st century will be worse than the 20th. “It is an accumulation of desires that should break out the Parusia” in other words the final appearance of Christ born again.
And here is the final sentence: “Christians, charged with keeping the flame of fervour alight for eternity following Israel, just twenty centuries after the Ascension, what have we done with our wait?” Amen!
Florin Callerand
1st Sunday of Advent
1st December 1996
French to English translation by Debbie Garrick and Cécile Simon
"Voici notre Sauveur qui vient", CD Tissage d'or 4 (Communauté de la Roche d'or)
To see the lyrics in French of the music "Voici notre Sauveur qui vient"