Fr. Dave's Thoughts - March 22, 2024
Dear Friends,
This week, we will finish our look at Henri Nouwen’s book Out of Solitude by finishing the second half of his third and final meditation in the book entitled “In Expectation.” The second part of this meditation is entitled “Expectation as Joy.” I hope you have enjoyed this Lenten journey through this wonderful little book.
[On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus said to his apostles:] “In a short time you will no longer see me, and then a short time later you will see me again.” Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean, ‘In a short time you will no longer see me, and then a short time later you will see me again?”… Jesus knew they wanted to question him, so he said, “You are asking one another what I meant by saying, ‘In a short time you will no longer see me, and then a short time later you will see me again.’ “In all truth I tell you, you will be weeping and wailing while the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. A woman in childbirth suffers, because her time has come; but when she has given birth to the child she forgets the suffering in her joy that a human being has been born into the world. So it is with you: you are sad now, but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy, and that joy no one shall take from you… (John 16:16-22)[i]
Expectation as Joy
Whereas patience is the mother of expectation, it is expectation itself that brings new joy to our lives. Jesus not only made us look at our pains, but also beyond then. “You are sad now, but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy.” A man or woman without hope in the future cannot live creatively in the present. The paradox of expectation indeed is that those who believe in tomorrow can better live today, that those who expect joy to come out of sadness can discover the beginnings of a new life in the center of the old, that those who look forward to the returning Lord can discover him already in their midst.
You know how a letter can change your day. When you watch people in front of the wall of mailboxes, you can see how a small piece of paper can change the expression on a face, can make a curved back straight, and a sullen mouth whistle again. The day might be just as dull as the day before and the work just as tiring. But the letter in your mailbox telling you that someone loves you, that someone is looking forward to meeting you again, that someone needs your presence, or that someone promises to come soon, makes all the difference.
A life lived in expectation is like a life in which we have received a letter, a letter which makes him whom we have missed so much return even earlier than we could imagine. Expectation brings joy to the center of our sadness and the loved one to the heart of our longings. The one who stayed with us in the past and will return to us in the future becomes present to us in that precious moment in which memory and hope touch each other. At that moment we can realize that we can only expect someone because he has already touched us. A student from California who had to leave many of his good friends behind to come to school in the faraway East Coast recently said to me: “It was hard to depart; but if the good-bye is not painful, the hello cannot be joyful either.” And so his sadness of September became his joy at Christmas time.
Is God present or is he absent? Maybe we can say now that in the center of our sadness for his absence we can find the first signs of his presence. And that, in the middle of our longings, we discover the footprints of the one who has created them. It is in the faithful waiting for the loved one that we know how much he has filled our lives already. Just as the love of a mother for her son [or daughter] can grow while she is waiting for [their] return, and just as lovers can rediscover each other during long periods of absence, so also our intimate relationship with God can become deeper and more mature while we wait patiently in expectation of his return.[ii]
Conclusion
“In a short time you will no longer see me, and then a short time later you will see me again.” We are living in this short time. We can live in it creatively when we live it out of solitude, i.e., detached from the results of our work. And when we live it with care, i.e, crying with those who weep… But it is the expectation of his return which molds our solitude and care into a preparation for the day of great joy.
This is what we express when we take bread and wine in thanksgiving. We do not eat bread to still our hunger or drink wine to quench our thirst. We just eat a little bit of bread and drink a little bit of wine, in the realization that God’s presence is the presence of the One who came, but is still to come; who touched our hearts, but has not yet taken all our sadness away.
And so when we share some bread and some wine together, we do this not as people who have arrived, but as men and women who can support each other in patient expectation until we see him again. And then our hearts will be full of joy, a joy that no one can take away from us.[iii]
I have always appreciated Henri Nouwen because he is so real, he speaks from his heart about his own struggles. This book is dated a bit as you can tell by the reference to “the letter” something most of us don’t send or receive anymore. but I think we get the picture. A caring life is the essence of the good life, a life lived from a spiritual center and not a material one or an achievement oriented one.
I love what the spiritual writer Thomas Moore wrote in the introduction to this book; “Here are some of my insights,” he writes,
“’Nagging self-doubt is the basis of so much depression.’ We’re afraid… that we will be unmasked and revealed for being imperfect. We are afraid of being judged and found wanting. Nouwen’s answer echoes the extraordinary theologian Paul Tillich: Know that you are accepted. You are fine [just as] you are. Have faith in yourself, instead of requiring approval from others, and then get on with being connected in community…
‘A life without a quiet center becomes destructive.’… We need a central point of stillness so that our actions are creative rather than destructive. We need a spiritual point of view. We need, finally to discover absolute solitude and centering in God, in the full transcendence of our ego and our preoccupation with self.
The final solitude is to be free of the baggage and distraction of a clamoring self, our subtle and persistent narcissism. We need to lose that particular, limiting self-consciousness in simple and ordinary contemplation….”[iv]
Peace,
Dave.
[i] Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN., 1974; 2004, pp. 52.
[ii] Ibid. pp. 59-61.
[iii] Ibid. pp. 63
[iv] Ibid. pp. 9-11