The Annunciation comes in the Church Calendar months before Christmas – for obvious and natural reasons. But Advent is a time when it's important to look back in order to look forward; Christmas day is the fulfilment of the Annunciation, itself the fulfilment of long ago promises, made in the heart of God so long ago we call it Eternity.
The word "mystery" is not fit for purpose, but what words would do any better at explaining the inexplicable, attempting to describe that which is categorically beyond the efficacy of all our meaning laden categories? So we are stuck with mystery, stuck in mystery, mysteriously stuck within the limits and constraints of our own thinking. Advent celebrates unthinkable possibilities now become familiar and realisable through the Yes of a young woman to the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Her response, "Be it so" is itself beyond the understanding of all but those whose hearts beat in synchronic obedience to the call of God.
The contemporary demand for relevance, for pratcical application, for reducing and splitting a text by force into manageable parts that can be 'embodied', 'lived', 'practiced', destroys the hidden inner structure of mysteries more suited to wonder, adoration and silent inner assent to what is beyond us. So I like Jane Kenyon's poem, The Bat, and smiling at its relevance way up here in the North East, and its reference to how, long ago, the Holy Spirit came dangerously near, and redirected history.
The Bat
I was reading about rationalism,
the kind of thing we do up north
in early winter, where the sun
leaves work for the day at 4:15
Maybe the world is intelligible
to the rational mind;
and maybe we light the lamps at dusk
for nothing…
Then I heard the wings overhead.
The cats and I chased the bat
in circles—living room, kitchen,
pantry, kitchen, living room…
At every turn it evaded us
like the identity of the third person
in the Trinity: the one
who spoke through the prophets,
the one who astounded Mary
by suddenly coming near.
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