Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 20, 2019
Today, in Mercy, we keep vigil with the “Children of Israel” as they begin the great Exodus.
Even the youngest of us understands what it means to “keep vigil”. Toddlers, on Christmas Eve, keep vigil for the sound of Santa’s footsteps on the roof.
Throughout our lives, the kinds of vigils we keep deepen in meaning. Any given night holds an array of vigil-keepers:
- A nervous student pulls an all-nighter before a big exam.
- An anxious parent watches over a feverish child.
- A faith-filled soul sits in pre-dawn prayer.
- A vigilant elder prays quietly at the death bed of a long-beloved.
As families and communities, we wait together for each other’s lives.
- Together, we expect the births of each generation’s babies.
- We wait and hope for college acceptances and new jobs.
- We wait for test results of all kinds.
- We wait to listen to one another’s stories of success or disappointment.
- We wait and prepare for the dawning of great feasts like Christmas and Easter
When we keep vigil, we live in expectation of something or someone coming to us. But there is another important aspect to every vigil.
As we wait, something is also happening within us.
In the deep quiet of our waiting, we are transformed.
Thomas Merton, monk of Gethsemane, was assigned to keep a particular type of vigil at the abbey. It was called “fire watch”, a night-long lookout to ensure that no fire erupted in the old wooden buildings as the other monks slept. Merton writes about that watch at the end of his book The Sign of Jonas:
The fire watch is an examination of conscience in which your task as watchman suddenly appears in its true light: a pretext devised by God to isolate you, and to search your soul with lamps and questions, in the heart of darkness.
“Fire Watch, July 4, 1952”
Today, as we pray with Israel’s Passover vigil, let us consider our own vigils – current or past. Beyond their apparent meaning, to what secret transformation might God be inviting us? What is happening deep in our soul as we watch far out to the horizon of our hope?
Music: Firewatch – Chris Remo
Lavish Mercy 