If you had to choose a geometric symbol to define your life, which would you choose?
Is it like a square . . . boring, stagnate? Is it a triangle . . . starting out low, but then having a high point and now coming back down? Is it a pentagon or an octagon . . . because it has so many sides to it?
Well here’s an image I’d like you to consider . . . thinking of your life as a circle. A round object that continues round and round. St. Bonaventure (from the 12th century) said, “For [none] can have understanding unless [they] consider where things come from, how they are led back to their end, and how God shines forth in them.”
For all of us have faced difficulties in life and we stop with that “thing” and say, “My life is over. There’s no reason for me to keep living.” Or we can continue on and recognize that YES life has difficulties [I draw a large circle in the air], but things will/do circle back and we can start again.
Today is the feast of the “Immaculate Conception” of Mary, who is the feminine archetype of how we are to enter the circle of life. [I continue to trace circles in the air]
Mary bore the initial suspicion and disappointment of her fiancé Joseph;
Then there’s the joy of giving birth holding this new life
but then she bears the terror of all refugees who flee their homes and homelands to save their children;
She has the joy of raising a gifted kid
Yet bears the horror of all parents whose children go missing and, yet finally finds her twelve-year-old
boy discussing theology in the temple,
She sees her son doing some incredible things . . . like changing water in wine and healing people
but then has the unbearable horror of watching her son die on a lynching tree
But then he comes back to life
And then he goes away again.
If anything Mary gives us the example of hope. That life is not a roadblock or stop sign. And hope is not primarily for the future. It’s for now! Fr. Richard Rohr says, “Hope is a way of seeing time and understanding the present. It’s a way of tasting and receiving the moment. It gives us the capacity to enter into the future in a new way. In that sense, we can call hope true realism, because hope takes seriously all the many possibilities that fill the moment. Hope sees all the alternatives; it recognizes and creates an alternative consciousness.”
That’s the hope of Mary. The person who can see the moment fully is never hopeless. Hopelessness is an experience whereby a person’s journey is not seen as a circle. Are things bad for you right now? Well hang in there, it will get better. Do you only see despair and hardship in the world? Well, look around for every catastrophe there are dozens of good people who step up and help out. Are there families who are experiencing hardships this Christmas? Well there are families buying presents for them with our Christmas giving program.
We celebrate Mary today. We celebrate God’s presence in her life and in ours. No matter how hard things seem . . . things will come around. We celebrate hope today. Hope is not the naïve expectation that all will go smoothly in life. It is the conviction that God will always be with us in whatever happens.