Repentance is what happens when we dare to ask, what if the world is more generous than I thought. What if power works differently than I assumed? What if love is not scarce? Repentance is a reorientation towards capital T Truth, and this is why repentance changes everything once you know how to see it.
“At least I’m not like that sinner,” was the prayer Jesus put on the lips of a self-righteous character in a parable, whom I wish I did not resemble. But I do. Every single day I do. The good news is that there really is abundant life and liberation in the way of Jesus.
It turns out that God believes a gentle, soft body is a perfect and sufficient way to be in the world, even in a world more accustomed to the bravado and brittle show of force. And for all that a body may endure, our bodies are also the places where we feel the warmth of a hand reaching over to squeeze ours, the sustenance of a meal, maybe with a belly laugh, the rinse of water cleansing us anew. It may be hard to have a body in the world, and still, our bodies – your body, mine, this is where our belovedness begins.
As I get older, and lose more of the people I love, I hang much less hope on my rational comprehension of whatever awaits us on the far side of death. Scripture itself isn’t very clear about the details and I haven’t yet been visited by an angel with inside information. But my trust in the truth and the hope of the scriptures somehow has only deepened over the years. And I find myself, if not more certain about the details, so much more confident in the divine Love that awaits us. I do believe that somehow all the vulnerable infants, and all the anxious parents, the hopeful, foreign wise ones and even the violent tyrants, all exist only within the absurdly wide mercy of God. So do you. So do I. So do all of the living. So do all of the dead.
“Let it be unto me according to your will,” was not an act of blind obedience or resignation to a fate. It was an opening of a space in Mary to receive the gift of God. And in doing so, Mary wasn’t setting herself apart from us. She was showing us the way.
What do you need emptying of, dear virgin friends, so that God can prime you with glorious gifts, that your life might be given away with no expectation of return?