I came across an amazing video while searching for something from my son’s college in California. In 1982 Mother Teresa visited the college and gave the commencement address to that year’s graduates. Can you imagine having had Mother Teresa at your college graduation!?

I found a quiet moment to watch it, miraculously without interruption, and how beautiful she was. Her smile and her peace, the funny and inspiring stories she told about the people she came across in her day-to-day life serving the poorest of the poor.

The graduation day was in the heat of a California summer, but her words felt so perfectly timed for the coming of Advent. Encouraging the students to be bearers of Christ, she spoke of the moment that Our Lord came to Mary, “the most beautiful of creatures, so pure, so holy, she, in accepting him in her life, immediately, she went in haste to give him to others.”

As soon as she said those words I looked for a pen to write them down. There was no pause, no doubt, no checklist: “Immediately she went in haste to give him to others.” That was during the first Advent. How very different from the Advents of my life.

I’ve written in Advents past that the Visitation is one of my favourite Rosary decades. I always feel the sense of mystery, and at the same time a sense of terror! Mary is so newly pregnant with the Son of God! What all of that means to a young, unmarried Jewish girl can’t be expressed. An angel tells her she has been chosen from all eternity to bring about the Saviour of humankind, and without hesitation, in haste, she makes her way to Elizabeth. She has been named the Mother of God, but her first thought is to go and serve someone else. But then, where else should she go? The secret miracle they shared united them. No one else on the planet but these two could yet share this promise of redemption. The joy and wonder and holy fear with which they met each other.

Advent invites each of us to remember the joy and holy fear of our own salvation. We rightfully look forward to Christmas, but Mother Teresa’s words reminded me that that joy comes with a calling. “This, the joy, the presence of Jesus, you must be able to give wherever you go. But you cannot give what you do not have. That’s why you need a pure heart, that you will receive as a fruit of your prayer, as a fruit of your oneness with God. And if you seek God, immediately you will love one another … The fruit of prayer is always the deepening of faith, and the fruit of faith is always love, and the fruit of love is action. We must put our love for Jesus in loving action.”

It was the love of God, of her unborn Son, that led Mary in haste. Her faithful life of prayer opened her to put God’s love into action.

I guess that sometimes I forget that Advent is not a shopping countdown, but a penitential time, a time to pray and prepare our hearts for the birth of Christ. Mother spoke of the world’s loneliness, the world’s “terrible hunger for love.” Are we not called to be the bringers of that love? But how can we give what we do not have, she asks.

I know that I, myself, do not have the love required to heal the sorrows and wounds of a broken world. And yet Christ calls me to bring joy, hope, truth, love. If through prayer I can unite myself with him, surrender my will to his, then it will not be myself, but him that I can share with those I meet. Mother reminded the students that God speaks, “I am the light that you must light, I am the truth that you must speak, I am the joy that you must share, I am the life that you must live, I am the love that you must love. Go with that, the joy of loving … do not be afraid to love.”

It seemed so natural, so easy as she spoke. The reality is that it is not always easy. Not everyone wants the love God offers, and so we hesitate, and we doubt. But our invitation, our first step, and the purpose of Advent, is to pray, and to receive, and become more united with God ourselves.

“And now you go out, you also go in haste to give the joy of loving, the joy of sharing. For you have received, not to keep, but to share.”

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