Advent Reflections: The Cave of the Heart

This Advent season has been rich and deep with images and words that have guided my thoughts and prayers while I await and prepare for the birth of Christ. I almost feel like I need a couple more weeks to let it all sink in. I know it is already Christmas Eve, but perhaps you will also find these reflections helpful as you continue your own journey.

One of the images that I have been particularly drawn to this year, though, I actually came across earlier in the year in Jan Richardson's book In Wisdom's Path. She begins her reflections on Wisdom, and Advent, with the image of a deep cave where Christ is born.

[Sister Doris Klein, C.S.A] held the opinion, she said, that Christ was born in a cave. "We all carry a cave," Sister Doris reflected, "a hidden place within us, into which God longs to be born." She told us that Advent is a season to enter that place, to turn inward and encounter the God who seeks to emerge through us.

This Advent, for me, has been one full of mystery. I think this is why I am drawn to this image of the cave. It is dark and unknown. I do not know how deep it is, or its shape. I do not even have a name for it. I only know that it is there. And yet, within this cave, God is present. The Holy One, the Christ Child, is born. In the places of my life, and within myself, that are dark and unkown, mysterious, even places that I do not want to see or touch, I remember that God is always present there, creating, birthing, transforming.

Within this cave, I think, is another image. The cave is not a vast, empty space void of meaning and purpose. Rather, it is full of Mystery, waiting, anticipation, expectation. It is not dead, but is alive with creating, growth, transformation. This cave is also a womb, pregnant with God's Spirit that grows within me, within us. At the cave we are drawn inward to attend to the Holy within us, to seek the Mystery beyond us, to await that which is growing within us. Through this tending and attending, out of the womb is born transformation that extends beyond us into the world.

In this journey during Advent we are brought into something that is larger than us, even larger than our world. This birth we await happens within us, and beyond us. We cannot understand it, we cannot explain it. We wait and we watch for what is about to happen. But we are not passive. Advent is also a time of preparation, of attending to what is needed within the cave, of tending to what is growing and birthing within us.

During this season I have been accompanied with several questions that may also now accompany you: What does your cave look like? What is needed within the cave? What is growing within you? What is within you that is waiting to be born into the world that you live in, as God works to bring salvation and transformation to all of us? Like Mary, how do you say "Yes. Let it be."? How do you tend this growth and transformation, in yourself, in your family, in your community, in the world beyond? And, like Mary visited Elizabeth, who also accomanies you in your journey?

In the cave of our hearts...in the fabric of our lives...in the soul of our earth...you continue, O God, to be born!