What Are You Waiting For!
by BVM Council
What are you waiting for!
How often this line is delivered with an exclamation point rather than a question mark, as a reprimand or an insistent call to hurry up.
That’s not Advent waiting.
This season asks very simply and quietly:
What are you waiting for?
It may be a calendar question.
Are you waiting for an appointment?
Waiting for a diagnosis or a decision?
Waiting for a family gathering or a visit from a friend?
Waiting for a Christmas concert or a holiday open house?
Waiting for Christmas Eve and the Infant to be placed in the Nativity scene? Waiting for the respite of a quiet January?
This is the waiting of the Advent calendar—counting down days, checking things off a list, turning a page.
What feelings does this waiting carry—Quiet yearning? Excitement? Anxiety? Anticipation? Relief?
It may be a spiritual question.
Some among us are waiting for Christ to “come again,” to come for them on their last day.
Some may be waiting for inspiration, for clarity, for a movement of the Spirit.
Others wait for an answer to prayer, for healing, for peace.
This is a quiet, interior waiting.
What feelings does this waiting call forth—Hope? Patience? Impatience? Openness? Longing? Trust?
Our waiting may assume world-wide, even cosmic, proportions as we move into a new year.
We wait for Jesus to be “born” in hearts around the world, amid the poverty, warfare and oppression so rampant today.
We wait for Christians everywhere to proclaim in their words and actions the angels’ song, “Peace to all people on earth.”
We wait for a global commitment to preserve the health of our common Earth home and all of its people.
This waiting cannot be passive. It demands our participation, our prayer, our persuasive presence, even as we know we may never see its fulfillment. It needs an exclamation point that moves each of us to do our small part to bring Christ’s presence to our time, to our world.
What feelings accompany this active waiting—Energy? Momentum? Frustration? Solidarity? Hope? Call to mission?
What are you waiting for!
In advancing the life and mission of the Sisters of Charity, the Council invites BVMs to an ever deepening commitment to further the mission of Jesus. They keep before the sisters the call to holiness which both inspires and finds expression in spiritual growth, apostolic community life, and ministry.