Allow Jesus to "lay down" in your weakness

A reflection by Mother Cecilia, originally published in Horizons, the newspaper of the Eparchy of Parma.

Through the sponsorship of a benefactor, the nuns of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, organized by the Melkite Eparchy of Newton, this past July. It was the first time in the Holy Land for most of the nuns of the monastery.

On the first full day of our pilgrimage, my amazement grew as each new site increased in importance. I was in awe when we visited the place where some of the prophets are buried. Then we visited the place where the greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist, was born. As we approached the place of the birth of the Messiah — of God on earth — I simply didn’t know what to think.

In Bethlehem, we went first to Shepherd’s Field, where the angels announced the Good News of Christ’s birth to the herdsmen. We walked through the ruins of a monastery that existed during the Byzantine period.

After lunch, we arrived at the Church of the Nativity. It is one of the oldest churches still in existence. The doorway is very low, so that visitors must bow in order to enter.

Underneath the church is the Grotto of the Nativity, where the place of Jesus’ birth is marked with a metal star on the floor. Nearby, in the same chapel, is the place where Jesus was laid in the manger. We listened to the chanting of the Gospel and then venerated the place of the Nativity as we sang the Troparion of the Nativity.

I was overwhelmed and nervous to venerate this holy spot, especially as we were being urged to move quickly. As I kneeled down and leaned over to kiss the star on the floor, my metal water bottle fell out of the side pouch of my backpack and crashed loudly on the marble floor near the star. Someone picked it up for me. I tried to touch my chotki to the star, but because it was attached to my belt I couldn’t reach it there. I awkwardly got up. I quickly understood that Jesus was allowing me to be humbled in the very place where he humbled himself by becoming man.

Then I walked a few steps over to the place where Jesus was laid in the manger. It was slightly less chaotic there. I stood there quietly for a few moments and said in my heart to Jesus, “I don’t know how to pray here. I don’t know what to think about in this place where you have lain.”

Immediately, an image came to my mind: I saw myself receiving the Eucharist. Then I understood, and exclaimed to Jesus, “Oh, I’ve experienced this before! You lay in me every time I receive Communion!”

At that moment I began to relax. The places I visited in the Holy Land were not actually foreign to me. I had already experienced these mysteries interiorly, in the liturgy, and in the mysteries of the church.

As I look back on the experience of our pilgrimage, I realize that I didn’t need to figure out how to think or how to pray. God was giving himself to me, and my job was to open to receive him. This is what he continues to do in every moment of our lives.

During this Feast of the Nativity, may we humbly accept our weaknesses, allowing them to be places where Jesus lays down in us so that we can give him to the world.

The Gift of Seeing Our Poverty

A reflection by Mother Cecilia as we prepare for the Nativity of Our Lord

During this time of preparation for the birth of Our Lord, He has given me the gift of seeing my poverty a little more clearly. I am not talking about poverty in terms of a lack of physical things that I have, but in terms of my utter inability to do anything on my own without God. I’m weak, I’m limited and I’m frequently making mistakes and sinning.

When things are going well, I feel like I’m in control and I think that I can do anything! It’s when I’m struggling and suffering that I see my poverty. God allows this struggle and suffering for many reasons, one of which is that it helps me to see my poverty. When this happens, I often wonder, “Why do I have to see this poverty?” It really hurts! Sometimes I remember the words of one of my favorite saints, who said, “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and the greatest of these is to have shown me my littleness, my incapability of any good" (St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul).  Wow! I usually don’t think of this revelation as a gift, let alone as the greatest gift!

I’m beginning to learn that the knowledge of my poverty is a gift. I’d like to share some of the reasons why. First of all, it’s always better to know the truth. “The truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32). And the truth is not only that I’m poor; it is also the truth that God is rich—rich in power, mercy and love. Seeing my poverty gives me the opportunity to more clearly see God’s greatness.

Secondly, as I learn the truth, I see that it is God who does all things in me, and I learn that He does them so much better than I could ever imagine. St. Paul tells us that the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Therefore we can say with St. Paul, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10).

Thirdly, the knowledge of my poverty shows me that God loves me for who I am, not for any sort of perfect actions I can do for Him. It’s actually my poverty that attracts God to me! The poverty of mankind drew Him to become man and to pour His divinity into our humanity! I am like the poor and messy cave in which Jesus was born. He could have arranged to be born in a cleaner, neater place, but He didn’t. He could wait until I seemingly have “everything under control” to do His work, but He tends to do His most powerful work in me when I am the weakest.

Finally, a great gift of seeing my poverty is so that I can surrender to God and give Him permission to work in me and be with me. When I think that I can do everything, I forget to do it with Him. I forget that He wants to be with me!

As we celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord, we notice the poor and messy cave because of the One who was born in it. We rejoice that Jesus chose to enter into this poverty. But the point of the feast is not to remain gazing at the cave and the manger alone, but to gaze upon God who has become man. We can see His face and live (Ex 33:20)! I often get stuck focusing my eyes on the poor “manger” of my heart and forget to keep my eyes on Jesus. I get discouraged by all of my weaknesses and forget about Him there in the midst of them.

When I am discouraged, I am a poor and messy closed space, but when I trust in God, I am a poor and messy open one. I need to accept my weakness and allow it to be the place where God can enter in and work in His power. When we open to the birth of Divine Life in us, we can rejoice with Mary, the Mother of God, in the words of her Magnificat: “He has looked with favor upon the lowliness of His servant, from this day forward all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and Holy is His name!”

The Darkness of the Cave

 A reflection on the Incarnation, to be read slowly:

"The manger becomes the place in which the incomprehensible God lies down" (Irmos of the Feast of the Nativity).

A manger: a feeding trough for animals.  God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, becomes a man and is born in a dark and dirty cave filled with animals and is placed in a manger.

How much deeper could God lower Himself?  How much more humbly could He come into the world?  How much more fully could He conceal His divinity?  He couldn't have.

However...the very event which obscured divinity is also the one which united divinity to us.

"Yes, in order that Love be fully satisfied, it is necessary that It lower Itself, and that It lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire" (St. Therese of Lisieux).

The Incarnation!: what beauty and power!  Human nature can now be transformed into the divine!

But the Incarnation--the mystery of salvation--wasn't completed in the cave.  The cave wasn't even dark enough... The utter darkness of the cross and the tomb was necessary.  This is why, in Byzantine iconography, Jesus' swaddling clothes look like burial wrappings, and His manger looks like a tomb.

"So also the chief priests mocked Him to one another with the scribes, saying, 'He saved others; He cannot save Himself.  Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe'" (Mk 15:31-32).

What deeper darkness could there ever be on earth?  The Son of God, the Savior of the World, is brutally tortured and killed on a cross.  And yet, Christ's death and resurrection is the greatest, most powerful and glorious event ever to occur on earth!

And for us, this paradox is also true in our little lives: It is often the case that the darkest, most difficult events in our lives are the moments in which God is working in us with the greatest power.  Darkness does not mean that He is far away.  It means He is very close.