Emotions and Will in a Season of Waiting
/STEPHANIE FRIES
Seasons of waiting and preparation are inherent to the Catholic liturgical calendar. Both Lent and Advent are significant and intentional times to ready our minds and hearts for a new encounter with Christ--through both his birth and his death and resurrection.
Similarly, seasons of waiting and preparation are embedded into our personal lives, especially in times leading up to significant encounters of relationship.
PHOTOGRAPHY: EVAN KRISTIANSEN PHOTOGRAPHY
Engagement is a space prior to a wedding. Pregnancy is a space prior to the birth of a child. The passage of time can often be a trigger for the rise and fall of emotions. How we manage, process and project those emotions is part of our personal journey toward holiness.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we are instructed to “be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” In our earthly pursuit of sanctification, we can learn from the perfect human hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Fully human yet divine in nature, we see that both Jesus and Mary, in their separate experiences of approaching death and childbirth, respectively, were affected by feelings of impatience, fear, or anticipation.
In the sorrowful mystery of Jesus’ agony in the garden, we read Jesus experienced feelings of sorrow and distress in the final stages of his preparation. Keep in mind how, in many ways, his entire public ministry was all a part of the journey towards his new reality in heaven. The agony in the garden is not his solitary experience of anticipation, but a final culmination of waiting before the new journey to the cross begins.
Despite his soul being filled with sorrow, he approached God in prayer three times, praying, “My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done!”
He feels the breadth and depth of sorrow, a deep emotional experience, and he admits the ache of his heart! Yet in the same sentence, he unites his own will to God’s will. He surrenders his sorrow to trust in God.
We hear an echo of this surrender in Mary’s experience 33 years prior when she prepares to conceive, deliver, and raise Jesus as her own son. In the joyful mystery of the angel Gabriel’s Annunciation unto Mary, she responds with a question, a doubt: “How can this be?”
The dialogue continues between the angel and Mary until she united the questions of her heart to God’s will and says, “May it be done to me according to your word.” Her pregnancy continued through additional experiences as she journeyed--emotionally and physically--to the birth of Jesus.
In these stories, we read of two human beings who engaged in seasons of waiting with strong emotions, yet perfectly offered their will to God’s desire.
The Liturgical seasons of the church are intentional times to help us reflect on the posture of our hearts as we approach the ever-new realities of our faith. Even more, the seasons of waiting embedded in our vocations as wives and mothers are real-life opportunities to turn reflections into practice.
As it was with the agony in the garden, the Annunciation or engagement and pregnancy, certain opportunities may be once-in-a-lifetime. This Advent, create a space in your heart for the season of waiting to implant itself deep into your heart so when the opportunity comes, you too can surrender your sorrow, fear, anxiety or doubt to the will of God the Father with hopeful trust.
