The Gospel of Yes Daily Reflection for Dec. 3, 2023
DECEMBER 3, 2023
SUNDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT
THE GOSPEL OF YES
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:
When the angel Gabriel is sent to Mary, she is already in a place of availability to God. Her heart has already been turned toward him. She is already disposed to hearing from him.
Our yes to God begins when we are turned toward him in this way, open and available. When we only focus on saying no to sin and temptation, we can miss what God is doing. When white-knuckling our way through struggles and temptations becomes “the Gospel,” we usually miss the good things God wants to do.
The good news of the Gospel isn’t just saying no to sin. It is a joyful yes to every good thing God has in mind for us:
Abandon yourself completely into the hands of God, and take directly from him every event of life, agreeable or disagreeable. Only then can God make you really holy. He loves your soul dearly, cling to him, and trust him, he so longs to be trusted. I would like you to know what I think Jesus wants from you. He would like you to place yourself in his hands entirely, giving him full permission to do what he likes with you. Thus you will accept lovingly crosses, trials, joys, and sickness, which you will try to take from his loving hands as a proof of love. Don't ask for suffering, but open your arms wide if it comes. (1)
To make this amazingly generous yes, we need to be turned towards the Lord. To be gazing at him. To see his beauty.
For some, this is a huge shift. Maybe you’ve only ever heard the “Gospel of No.” So, to think of it in a new and proper way can be a radical and difficult change. No worries. God can make this change.
TODAY’S PRAYER:
In your prayer today, spend time with Our Lady praying through these verses from Psalm 27. Notice the verbs to seek, to gaze, to hear… They all imply an attentiveness to God. They teach us the beginning of the “Gospel of Yes,” which starts with turning our hearts to the Lord.
Psalm 27:4,7-9,13
There is one thing I ask of the Lord,
only this do I seek:
to live in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord…
O Lord, hear my voice when I call;
have mercy and answer me.
Of you my heart has spoken,
“Seek his face.”
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not your face from me.
I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness
in the land of the living.
FOR YOUR REFLECTION:
Domenico Beccafumi, The Annunciation (1545)
(Note: In most e-book readers, you can tap or pinch/zoom on the image to see it in greater detail.)
The Annunciation is one of the most frequently painted scenes in sacred art. Despite the many artists who have set it to canvas over the centuries, there are two symbolic elements we find in many paintings of the Annunciation:
An open window.
An open book of the Scriptures.
Both elements symbolize our Lady’s openness, availability, and attentiveness to God.
The Open Window
The open window signifies Mary’s openness of heart and soul to the Lord. While she is often depicted in an enclosed room, garden, or courtyard in scenes of the Annunciation, there is always some architectural element that also implies her simultaneous openness to the Lord.
The enclosed garden or courtyard, in Latin Hortus Conclusus, is a reference to Mary’s purity and virginity: “How can this be since I have no relations with a man?” (Luke 1:34) It is an image taken from the Song of Songs 4:12 which reads: “A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed!” While Mary is preserved from knowing man, she remains open to the Lord. This is the symbol of the open window. Here, in Beccafumi’s work, the window looms large and central in the canvas, with the bright light drawing our eyes to it. The sheer size of the open window seems to capture Mary’s great openness to God, her total availability.
The Open Book of the Scriptures
Notice the open Scriptures in Mary’s left hand, supported on her lap. Mary is often depicted with the Scriptures in paintings of the Annunciation. Like the open window, it is a symbol of her openness to the Lord, but it also implies a closeness and familiarity. In her heart, Mary is already pondering his Word, already prepared, it seems, for the unfolding of God’s plan in which the Word will become flesh in her very womb.
Reflect on This Image Today:
How open are you to the Lord? Is there a large and looming window opened to God in your life? There may be a window, but is it closed and locked? Advent is the time to open it! We will never be able to say yes to God without first creating greater openness in our hearts to him.
What about the open Scriptures? How available are you to the Lord through his word in Scripture? Do you have any intimacy or closeness to the Lord through Scripture? Is there prayer time built into your day in which you turn your heart and soul to the Lord?
Later in the day, pray again through the verses from Psalm 27 above, in light of the painting of Mary and what you learned about our openness to God from it.
William Doyle and Patrick Kenny, To Raise the Fallen: A Selection of the War Letters, Prayers and Spiritual Writings of Fr. Willie Doyle SJ (Dublin: Veritas Publications, 2020), 125-126.