We are between Ascension Day and Pentecost: we are in the Novena: in the nine days between. This is the original meaning of the term. These between times in the Christian year always seem like thin places to me, times when whatever it is divides the material and the spiritual, this world and the next, is somehow less dense, permeable almost.
In these nine days - between our Lord's ascension to the Father, and the outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit - his mother Mary, together with "certain women" (I think we can guess who was among them!), his brothers, and the Apostles, "were constantly devoting themselves to prayer." (Acts 1.13-14) It must have been strange for them. They had no real idea how long they were going to have to wait, nor quite what it was they were waiting for. They just knew Jesus had told them to wait. Oh, he had told them to wait to "be baptised with the Holy Spirit" - but they had no real frame of reference for that.
We are ourselves living in the times between. We live between birth, which we can't really remember, and death, which we can't really imagine. We know, as Christians, that death isn't the end of the story; but what lies on the other side of death we can't imagine either. More than this: we lives in the times between our Lord's ministry on earth, his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, and his Parousia, his "coming again" - whatever that means. On the far side of Parousia lies the Eschaton, and at that our imaginations finally, and completely, fail. Well, mine does. If what John the Evangelist was shown was in fact a glimpse of it, even his philosophical mind and his wonderful grasp of Greek failed him, and we are left with the enigma (I almost said mare's nest) that we call The Revelation.
So what did the original followers of Jesus do, lost like us in their time between, not knowing how long they were waiting, or for what, really? They constantly devoted themselves to prayer. I can't myself think of any other possible reaction... I suppose that is why I find myself so strongly, so deeply called to the life of prayer. I am confused, puzzled. I find this whole thing of being between Parousia and Eschaton, between birth and death, between the chthonic and the spiritual, just baffling, just as I find it baffling (Romans 8.26) to know how to pray. And that, as much as anything, is why I seem to have been called to pray the Jesus Prayer. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." What else is there to say?
In these nine days - between our Lord's ascension to the Father, and the outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit - his mother Mary, together with "certain women" (I think we can guess who was among them!), his brothers, and the Apostles, "were constantly devoting themselves to prayer." (Acts 1.13-14) It must have been strange for them. They had no real idea how long they were going to have to wait, nor quite what it was they were waiting for. They just knew Jesus had told them to wait. Oh, he had told them to wait to "be baptised with the Holy Spirit" - but they had no real frame of reference for that.
We are ourselves living in the times between. We live between birth, which we can't really remember, and death, which we can't really imagine. We know, as Christians, that death isn't the end of the story; but what lies on the other side of death we can't imagine either. More than this: we lives in the times between our Lord's ministry on earth, his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, and his Parousia, his "coming again" - whatever that means. On the far side of Parousia lies the Eschaton, and at that our imaginations finally, and completely, fail. Well, mine does. If what John the Evangelist was shown was in fact a glimpse of it, even his philosophical mind and his wonderful grasp of Greek failed him, and we are left with the enigma (I almost said mare's nest) that we call The Revelation.
So what did the original followers of Jesus do, lost like us in their time between, not knowing how long they were waiting, or for what, really? They constantly devoted themselves to prayer. I can't myself think of any other possible reaction... I suppose that is why I find myself so strongly, so deeply called to the life of prayer. I am confused, puzzled. I find this whole thing of being between Parousia and Eschaton, between birth and death, between the chthonic and the spiritual, just baffling, just as I find it baffling (Romans 8.26) to know how to pray. And that, as much as anything, is why I seem to have been called to pray the Jesus Prayer. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." What else is there to say?
4 comments:
Yes, what else is there to say?
I was about to type the very words that Jan did...
Amen, amen, amen.
I don't know if you do these, but I tagged you for a meme over at my blog....
I think of these times of waiting in much the same way as the "waiting" during contemplative prayer itself - not in any way a loss of time or a period before something "better", but the necessary preparation, the active participation in waiting, in order to be receptive to what may come.
I think the same thing about Ordinary time - not just weeks and months of "passing time" until a major liturgical feast or octave, but the time we are given to deeply nourish ourselves with prayer, spiritual reading, as well as service to others. What to do with this waiting? I always think, use it.
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