Fire in the Earth
It is done.
Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth
Not with the sudden crash of a thunderbolt,
riving the mountain tops:
does the Master break down doors to enter his own home?
Without earthquake or thunderclap:
the flame has lit up the whole world from within.
All things individually and collectively
are penetrated and flooded by it,
from the inmost core of the tiniest atom
to the might sweep of the most universal laws of being:
so naturally has it flooded every element, every energy,
every connecting link in the unity of the cosmos,
the one might suppose the cosmos to have burst
spontaneously into flame.
(by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ)
After I discovered this short poem many years ago and since that time it has become a staple of my Advent preparation as I take time to pray with it and discover new depths in the mystery of the Incarnation and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a reminder to me, over and over again, of how the coming of the Son of God changes everything, not just the great and the grand, but the very tiniest and forgotten breaths we take each day.
The first three words of the poem are a beautiful summation of what is happening. It is the coronation of a moment that has no beginning or end, the Alpha and the Omega of salvation where we find God’s will forever and unending and yet coming to completion in this great act of love in the birth of Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem. If we can stay with him and be with him and carry him with us in our lives, then it is done. I can often read the whole of the poem but those three small words stick in my mind in such a way that what occurs to “the inmost core of the tiniest atom” in the infusion of love within the soul of every person.
It is played out in the Gospels and the life of the Church from generation to generation as the spark of life, the child Jesus, is nurtured, formed and comes forth from the womb of our Blessed Mother. It is imagining how every fiber of Mary’s body was ignited with the presence of God and how infused with Love himself she carried forward the “full of Grace” the angel saw her to be. It is the reality of St. Joseph taking Mary and taking Love into his home and being transformed in the sacramental gift of life given by God and the caring and protecting as a man of justice held forth the chaste and holy love growing in the faith filled response to Grace in his presence.
I always have this image of the newly covered fields of snow that seem endless, perfect and seamless in their being. As a child looking out over these vistas, they drew me closer to the wonder of the eternity promised in our baptismal unity with God. Of course this wasn’t the thoughts that raced through my 10 year old brain at the time but the experience lived on into adulthood where it began to make sense and the metaphor could have the flesh of faith placed upon the bones.
Most of all “It is done” opens me to looking at how God call each of us into existence, as he called his Son to be formed in the womb of Mary. He sees each of us as his beloved children called to do his will and share in his blessings of goodness and love. It is those snow covered fields where we are covered perfectly and endlessly with God’s overwhelming gift of grace that slowly seeps deep within our hearts when we seek to be “done” by embracing true love in Jesus Christ.
Have a happy and holy Christmas.
God bless
Fr. Mark
