Spirituality: “Waiting on the Shores of Advent” By Miriam Pollard, OSCO

Fisherman walking the shore of Advent, what are you thinking?

Andrew, are you remembering the lash of the wind, the slap of the waves against your boat, and the voice of a man who has torn apart your sureties and cast your heart into the wounded skies?

Andrew, how many years have come and gone, as he came and went? How many years have changed the sea from home and livelihood into a passageway to somewhere else? Somewhere else of land, somewhere else of mind and soul.

Wanderer, teller of tales, Doorkeeper of Advent, you are not Paul or Luke or John. Who knows the way you preached? Man of the fishing coast, where did you go to fish for men?

Man of the morning fog, man of night’s uncertainties, brother, son, and scraper of nets: how do you preach to us now?

We smell the sea. We hear it cry. WE lick the salt from stinging lips, and squint into the sun. We listen.

We hear about this God you preach, this man of word and sacrament, this man of death and resurrection. This man who walked across the sea as on a highway, who has been and is a sea of his own making: what do you say of him? Of course, “Come and see. Come to the shore of Advent and run the shuddering waves across your hands, and lift the nets, and draw in the boats. And wait.”

Source: Give Us This Day: Daily Prayer for Today’s Catholic, November 2015, page 314.