DECEMBER 9, 2023

SATURDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

A YES TO GOD IN MY DAILY LIFE (I)

OPENING PRAYER:

COME, HOLY SPIRIT. I welcome you into my heart as Mary did. Come with power. Help me to offer my own yes to God the Father, saying with trust: “May it be done unto me according to your word.”

TODAY’S THOUGHT:

What is the yes we are offering to God this Advent? Looking at Mary’s yes at the Annunciation, it seems like it must be a huge yes, way outside the scope of everyday life. It seems like the yes God wants is too big and too important to be found in ordinary, daily life.

But is that case? When Mary offered her yes, it was a yes that included all of the same things that every mom says yes to: to sleepless nights with a newborn baby, to changing diapers, to singing lullabies to her son, to cleaning up after him, to waiting for his first word and his first step.

We see the same thing with St. Joseph. His yes to the Lord was a yes to providing for his family as every father does: yes to working dutifully to early mornings or late nights in the workshop, to caring for the needs of Mary and Jesus, to his own turns getting up in the middle of the night, to teaching Jesus the skills of his trade.

This teaches us that our yes to God includes all of the small, daily yeses that come with our vocation and state in life. This is good news, because it means that we don’t say yes to God somewhere outside of our daily life. We don’t have to leave daily life, in all of its ordinariness, to offer a superhuman yes.

“You must understand now, more clearly, that God is calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating theatre, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it… There is no other way. Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find Him.” (1)

TODAY’S PRAYER:

The life-transforming yes we make to God this Advent is made right in our daily life. It is a yes that includes so much of what is already asked of us as moms, dads, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, students, employees, friends, and neighbors. In saying yes to loving well in these small, daily moments, we are saying yes to God himself.

As you begin your prayer, turn the gaze of your heart to the Lord, pause a moment, and make yourself present and available to him, like Mary in the scene of the Annunciation…

Deuteronomy 30:11-14
"For this command which I am giving you today is not too wondrous or remote for you. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who will go up to the heavens to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may do it?” Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may do it?” No, it is something very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.”

FOR YOUR REFLECTION:

*Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece)Workshop of Robert Campin, Netherlandish, ca. 1427–32*

The Annunciation Triptych (known better as the Merode Altarpiece) is displayed at The Met Cloisters. It is described as:

“One of the most celebrated early Netherlandish paintings—particularly for its detailed observation, rich imagery, and superb condition—this triptych belongs to a group of paintings associated with the workshop of Robert Campin (ca. 1375–1444), sometimes called the Master of Flémalle.”

“Having just entered the room [in the central panel], the angel Gabriel is about to tell the Virgin Mary that she will be the mother of Jesus. The golden rays pouring in through the left oculus carry a miniature figure with a cross. On the right wing, Joseph, who is betrothed to the Virgin, works in his carpenter’s shop, drilling holes in a board. The mousetraps on the bench and in the shop window opening onto the street are thought to allude to references in the writings of Saint Augustine identifying the cross as the devil’s mousetrap. On the left wing, the kneeling donor appears to witness the central scene through the open door. His wife kneels behind him, and a town messenger stands at the garden gate. The owners would have purchased the triptych to use in private prayer. An image of Christ’s conception in an interior not unlike the one in which they lived also may have reinforced their hope for their own children.” (2)

Notice the familiar elements around Mary that we have already reflected on in our prayer: the enclosed room, the open window, the open Scriptures (both on the table and in Mary’s hands.) She is open and available to God. We cannot say yes to the Lord unless we have first made ourselves available to him and turned our hearts to him.

But notice also that the scene happens right in the home, in the living room. It does not happen in some remote place, like a mountaintop or far-off monastery. It is in the home. As the description from the Metropolitan Museum reminds us, this scene, painted in a home “not unlike the one in which [the donors] lived also may have reinforced their hope for their own children.” It is a beautiful and hopeful thing that God comes to us in the ordinary!

Do you value the yes you make to God in your daily life? Does your yes to the ordinary things of life seem too mundane to matter to God? Do you appreciate the power of the small times you say yes to God in your daily life? Ask Our Lady to pray that you might come to value the power of your everyday small yeses to the Lord.

For your continued prayer, return to the passage from Deuteronomy above and then offer one of the “Prayers of Surrender and Abandonment.”

St. Josemaria Escriva, “Conversations · 114 · Escriva.Org,” Conversations – Passionately Loving the World – Point 114, 2023, https://escriva.org/en/conversaciones/114/.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Workshop of Robert Campin | Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece) | South Netherlandish | The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” n.d. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/470304

The Gospel of Yes Daily Reflection for Dec. 9, 2023