Longing
I learned to value and appreciate the liturgical year when I first entered the convent. Those early days of training focused a lot on the liturgical seasons. We steeped ourselves in the Scriptural readings of the day and seasonal music. It was there I identified the grace of longing. Ahh, I thought. I am an Advent woman. Longing and waiting have been a key faith identifier within me to this day. Whatever does that have to do with this Christmastide? Again, in the Novitiate years, I came across a great spiritual writer: Rainer Maria Rilke and his ‘Letter to a Young Man.’ I have leaned into this quote of his for decades now. “. . celebrate Christmas in this devout feeling, that perhaps God needs this very anguish of yours in order to begin, . . . It has not always been ‘anguish’. Though this year there has been ple...