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Busy Person's Advent Retreat: Week 1

VISION Busy Person's Advent Retreat:
What are you waiting for?

WEEK 1
Sister Anita Louise Lowe, O.S.B.

Readings for the First Week of the Retreat. Read these passages from scripture, then ponder the reflection and the action step. If you wish, you can share your responses to the reflection question by email with the retreat moderator, Joel Schorn, jschorn@truequest.biz, who will pass them on to the other retreat participants.

Psalm 139:1-18
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed.
How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.

Isaiah 43:1-7
But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have
    redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
    when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba
    in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations
    in exchange for your life.
Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my
    daughters from the end of the earth—
everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Ephesians 1:3-14
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

Reflection
Discerning your direction in life is a good fit with the season of Advent. The scripture passages suggested to us this week emphasize that connectedness. In Psalm 139, we recognize God’s presence with us and knowledge of us. God formed us, created us, and knit us together in the womb. Surely, then, God knows us—perhaps even better than we know ourselves—and knows the paths of life which would be the best “fit” for each of us, the way that would lead to fulfillment.
    But discernment, like the season of Advent, calls us to be patient and to wait. The answers to major questions in life usually do not come quickly. Rather, we are asked to ponder our lives, to ask for God’s assistance, and to trust that in time—God’s time—the answer will be revealed.
    Waiting can be difficult. Often fears rise up within us as we consider our life’s path or direction. When that happens, we can turn to the passages given us from the Book of Isaiah and the Letter to the Ephesians. In both selections we can find a reassurance of God’s presence and care for us. God has called each of us by name. We belong to God, and God cares for each of us as he cared for his son, Jesus. The Holy Spirit, promised to us, has marked us as God’s own. Such knowledge gives us reason to trust and to believe.
    As we continue this Advent journey, let us wait with hope and expectation, trusting that all will be revealed to us in the proper time and believing that the God who made us and loved us into being has called us by name and continues to call us forward into newness of life.

Question for Reflection
What fears rise up as I discern my call in life?

Activity
What can I do to acknowledge those fears and then to turn them over, entrusting them to God’s care?