A loaves and fishes kind of day

For three of us in our monastic community, the Visitation is our Feast Day. You might think that a feast divided by three would diminish the cumulative individual ‘feast-ness’ of the day. But somehow, with three of us, the feast-ness multiplies exponentially such that the festivity quotient is far higher than it would have been with just one single individual celebrating her solitary feast.

It is really kind of a marvel. One divided by three becomes one multiplied by three and then “pressed down, shaken together, running over…” (cf. Lk 6:38)...three multiplied exponentially to the nth power by the shared joy of sisterly camaraderie.

It brings to mind loaves and fishes, blossoming deserts, and the kind of fecundity that comes from the capacity to share, to make room for the other, to let go of what you have and let it become more than it is.

Land of Next / Land of Now

Perhaps, if you are anything like me, you have some moments in which you are absent from the present because you are present to what is absent, already handling the next thing on your agenda instead of dwelling in the one precious amazing moment that is here right now before you. You have stepped out of the Land of Now and straight on into the Land of Next even as the present moment is tugging at your sleeve for some attention.

It happened to me again (for at least the gagillionth time) during Lauds this morning. I happened to be the one whose turn it was to lead our closing prayers. But as I got to the oh-so-familiar, no-notes-needed closing lines, I could not find the words because my mind had already moved on. I had left the Land of Now. I was in the Land of Next. A prompt from a Sister was required to bring me back to the present moment and the present words.

Today, the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, is a good time to remember to be present to the precious and amazing moment that is the present moment. Somewhere, somehow, God is in this moment, a visitation from on High over which we can leap with joy, or which we can leap straight over with distraction, or ambition, or frustration, or anticipation, or whatever beckons us away from the place and time and person and task or no-task which is before us.

Whatever comes next will come soon enough. But for now, I pray I can be present to the Dawn from on High that shines upon me in this very moment.

The Visitation

This morning’s Benedictus antiphon: This is the day the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice in it!

The Lord gives us this day, and we rejoice. But isn’t there also a sense in which God gives us to this day? Does the day rejoice in our presence in it? Does the day say something like, “This is the person the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice in this one created by the Lord!”?

The Lord made this day. The Lord made each of us. May our words and deeds, our silence and prayer, give the day cause to rejoice, just as the gift of the day leads us to rejoice. May we be a blessing to the day as the day is a blessing to us. May it be like a Visitation, like an embrace, two of God’s creations – this day and us – rejoicing in each other, and together giving glory to our Creator.