Presence

“Come to me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest”. (Matthew 11:28). Here I am, Lord. I come to seek Your presence. I long for Your healing power.

Scripture

Hosea: 14:8

O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?
It is I who answer and look after you.
I am like an evergreen cypress;
your fruit comes from me.

Reflection

With the exception of humans, trees are the most frequently mentioned living things in the Bible. Their symbolism is powerful. The Dominican philosopher, writer, and spiritual teacher, Fr Donagh O’Shea, describes their importance in an online meditation for Ash Wednesday, 2024:
“New life will come from a deep place. One is left in no doubt that a deep truthful interiority is essential to a Christian life. A tree has to sink its roots deep into the ground, otherwise it comes down in the first storm (or perhaps it doesn’t, because it has never been able to raise itself up).
“If you project your imagination down into the ground where the roots are, you find a strange world of darkness, silence and stillness. How frightening darkness can be, especially when it is filled with strange unaccountable shapes! How deathly silent it is down there! And it is like the tightest prison imaginable; nothing ever moves. This is the opposite of the world above ground; there you have light, noise, movement.
“We human beings are like trees. There is a hidden half – hidden even from ourselves, hidden in darkness and mystery. And there is a half that is all light and noise and activity. If we identify ourselves only with the public part, the part ‘above ground’, we will not be able to withstand the storms of life, and we will have no profound resources for growth. Our actions, our lives, like trees, emerge from a rich darkness, silence and stillness.”

Prayer

Lord, let this Advent be for me a time to explore my hidden life. Help me enter a “rich darkness, silence and stillness” from which I will emerge, renewed in mind and heart and soul, ready to embrace an upcoming, invincible spring.

Amen

Glory to you, Father, source of all being,

to you, Jesus, Word made flesh,

to you Holy Spirit, Comforter,

as it was before time began,

is now and shall be into the future.

Amen.