God walks with Me
by Sr Clare of Assisi, Beatitudes Community
On behalf of Whakakōingo o te Ngākau: The Yearning Heart, the Diocesan Spiritual Directors’ Group
So often we live as if we were alone. We pray as if God wasn't there. Do we actually believe that God loves us and wants us to share in his own life? Perhaps our image of God is the problem. Is the "god" of my faith a distant figure, totally detached from the insignificant creature that I am, but ready to punish if I put a foot wrong? Or am I afraid that if I surrender to God's will, he might ask me to give up the things and people I love most?
This image of God doesn't seem to gel with the mystery we are invited to contemplate in this holy season. Kneeling before the crib at Christmas, I will look down at the baby Jesus, so small, so helpless. I am invited to come closer, to look beyond the plaster figure to the God who became so small just for me. The Word of God became flesh in Jesus Christ and dwelt among us, not to provide an escape from reality, but to be God with us in the concrete reality of our existence.
The liturgical season of Advent, the beginning of the Church's year, is an opportunity for us to receive new graces, especially that of a new beginning. So why not begin again today? Why not go to him just as I am and let him be born again in the messiness of my life? Why not let him come to me as he wants to, humble, little, vulnerable, to meet me in my hardness of heart, my self-sufficiency, my unwillingness to be seen as I truly am, and also in my deepest desire to be loved and wanted and valued?
Where does my heart need to be healed in order to "see God" in the face of Jesus and to believe in his love and goodness for me? Try placing yourself in the nativity scene — which figure do you feel most drawn to? Remain there and simply gaze at the infant in the manger, who is born for you this Christmas.
