Longing to be Borne - Lent Journal (25/50)

Last year when teaching our teens at church about the Eucharist, I started my talk with the following riddle:

Who was the first person to receive the Eucharist?

A few suggested John, the beloved disciple, for being the nearest to Jesus at the table at the Last Supper. Others suggested Peter, and a few guessed John the Baptist (which is obviously wrong, but you can't fault the teens for at least trying to guess). Finally, one clever teen raised his hand and said:

"Well, if the Eucharist is Jesus, and receiving the Eucharist means having Jesus in your body ... then I guess Mary?"

Today was the Feast of the Annunciation, and we celebrated both Mary's great fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. Her yes, cooperating with God's yes for us, brought about the Incarnation - the Creator's entry into Creation.

Today we wonder at the daughter of the Father becoming the Mother of the Son. As a human person, I can look at Mary and love her with such gratitude for what she's done for me. As a baptized Christian, I can look at Mary as my adopted mother who loves me just as she loves Jesus. As a sinner, I can be amazed at what God did in making Mary immaculate: the way it shows how holy He can make me, if I ever stop getting in my own way.

But one thing I can't relate to - at least, not through lived experience - is the physical sense of actually carrying Christ in my womb. Being a man, on a natural level the buck stops there, and I can't enter into that mystery. For friends who are mothers, they can relate to the tenderness and the depth of love and intimacy they have with their children as they bring them into the world.

They have a longing for that closeness to never end, and I don't blame them: what a gift, to be that near to another soul. I think that longing must also draw them nearer to Our Lady in relating to those months and years of being Christ's mother.

I guess what really amazes me though is the way God longed for Mary to bear Him - both for her own sake, and for ours, and I suppose also for the delight God has in His will being done. That God loves us so much as to save us is incredible enough; the fact that He actually desires to unite Himself with us, though, is unthinkable.

My friend Mary Grace pointed out that March 25th has traditionally been celebrated both as the date of the Annunciation and the date of the Crucifixion because the two are entangled: Jesus's birth was always destined to lead to the Cross.

At the same time ... I wonder: the Incarnation and Crucifixion were a means to an end, leading to something greater: Union with the Divine. I mean - there is no doubt that we needed redemption and reconciliation, and the way God brought that about was fitting. So I certainly would never dream of taking anything away from the Cross. But even that isn't "sufficient" (in the sense that we are each still in the process of being sanctified).

Mary longed for her child once she knew she would bear Him. We long for God once we realize our hunger. God longs for us until we are home. Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, and in the meantime God continually calls us until we rest in Him.

Perhaps that's part of the reason we have such a love for the Eucharist. God was first borne by Mary, but in a very real sense He desires to extend that same dignity to each of us: we each can carry Christ.