The Season of Sacred Waiting - Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, we come to New Year's Day. We have the New Year celebration of the liturgical year, the first Sunday of Advent. A day of great importance as we once again commence our march through the liturgical year. And here's the thing I want you to see. Advent is the season of sacred waiting. We're waiting for the adventus, for the coming of the Savior. It's four weeks of looking and waiting and hoping, watching with a kind of joyful anticipation. And I want you to see this. In a way, Advent, even though it's just four weeks, names something true of all of life, at least life in this world. All of us know there's a happiness that we want, but we don't have. I don't mean we're all in despair.

0:51 I mean, we're making our way through life. There's all kinds of good things. But deep down, we know that we're hungry for something that we don't have. And even at the best moments, I might say, especially at the best moments of life, we come to realize that. You've attained the thing you wanted forever. You've reached this great goal of your life, and you say, wonderful, wonderful, and then the next day, it's like, okay, now what? Now what's my next goal? because we know what we're hungry and thirsty for, we're not going to get in this world. Therefore, there's a watching and waiting and hoping quality to all of life. Now, to put it very negatively, I've quoted before from Teresa of Avila that this life is like a bad night in a bad hotel. Now, again, that's putting it rather negatively, but you get the point that this is not what we're meant for ultimately.

1:51 You know, a hotel is a place you go and you spend the night because you're going to go somewhere else. It's not home, but it's a provisional thing. Well, all of life is like that. Even the best life, the best moments, is kind of like a bad night in a bad hotel. I'm still on my way somewhere else. And that's why I'm going to call it a spirituality of waiting will mark the whole of one's life. Okay. But here's the problem. And I don't know if you're like me, but I'm not a patient person. Patience is not one of my virtues. I rather hate to wait. Waiting for the time I was a little kid. I remember waiting for my mother to come pick me up after school when I was in fourth grade. Difficult, anxiety-producing, uneasy.

2:46 And look at these cars. Oh, that's not her. That's not her. Where is she? Supposed to be here by now. Other people getting picked up. Well, they're getting it right. Where's my right? I've always hated waiting. I'll tell you, very recently, I went to the eye doctor. And when you go to the doctor, well, there's always a waiting room, first of all. And I was in that waiting room probably 20 minutes. I got there right on time for the appointment. But 20 minutes, and my name is called. Okay, good. And in I go to an office. I wait for a while longer. And then finally, in comes one of the assistants to the doctor. And he takes me through a number of these tests for my eyes. One, two, one, two. Okay, I do all that. And it's a pretty thorough test. Then he says, well, now I'm going to put the drops in your eyes. I'm like, oh, really? You need the drops in your eyes? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

3:37 The doctor, you know, I need that. So I know the drill. They put the drops in your eyes. Then you have to wait because they have to take effect. So again, they send you out into the waiting room. And there I sat. And you know when these drops are dilating your pupils, so then you can't see properly. So you can't read. You can't look at your phone. You're just kind of sitting there. And 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. When it got to 50 minutes, I remember, I was so frustrated. I got up and I went to see someone at the desk. And I said, you know, I've been here for like an hour and 15 minutes. I've been waiting here for 50 minutes. You know, what gives? And she goes, oh, no, you're the next one. Don't worry. So, all right, another five minutes. And then my name was called. And so I was brought down another hallway to not the first office, to another office. And I was told, now sit there.

4:34 Once again, I wait for the doctor. And the door is closed. And so I can hear him. out in the hallway. I can hear his voice. Oh, he's coming. No, he's coming to the next room. Oh, I hear him again. No, he's going. I waited maybe another 20, 25 minutes before finally the doctor came in. And what did he say? Yeah, all looks good. I think that the prescription that they came up with like an hour and 15 minutes ago, that'll be fine. And he signs off on it. My whole time there, two hours and 20 minutes probably. Most of it, waiting.

5:14 I hate to wait. I hate to wait. F. Scott Fitzgerald said the three worst things in life are to try to please and not be able, to lie in bed and not to sleep, and to wait for someone who does not come. Mm-hmm. Pretty good. Pretty good. I hate to wait. But waiting is all over the Bible. The people of Israel have to wait for centuries for the coming of the Messiah. Generation after generation, waiting, watching. Israel waits 400 years in slavery in Egypt before the Deliverer comes. Abraham is promised a son who will carry on his name and make him the father of many nations. He's 75, he's 85, he's 95.

6:18 His wife is the same age and he has to wait until Isaac comes. Noah, remember when the ark lands on Mount Ararat and then he still has to wait. until the waters subside. It's so eager. Think of me at the eye doctor. They were so eager to get out of that darn boat. But they had to wait. Look how prominent waiting is in the spiritual tradition, in the monastic life. Keeping vigil. What's keeping vigil, but it's expectant, hopeful waiting. It's kind of a fancy liturgical word for waiting. Think of when you came to a monastery, still true to this day in its own way, but especially in the Middle Ages. You came and you petitioned, but then you were made to wait very often.

7:12 You were being tested. Is this person really up to this life? Are they coming here for the right reasons? We better test them. I love in Dante, the Divine Comedy, sometimes as Virgil is leading Dante through hell, They're moving along, and Virgil knows just where to go. But at certain points, they're blocked, and they just have to wait. And Dante says to Virgil, What's the matter? Can't you get us? Nope. We just have to wait for divine help to come. And eventually an angel comes, and they make their way. Also, at the very beginning of the Purgatorio, so they're about to climb up Mount Purgatorio, which is its own form of waiting, isn't it? They have to wait through all the disciplines of Mount Purgatory. But even before they get up on the mountain, they notice this whole group of people at the foot of Mount Purgatory.

8:07 What are they doing? Nothing. They're waiting. They're waiting until they get permission to go up the mountain. It's like being in the doctor's office. You're just waiting. All right, all right. So I hate waiting. I bet you hate waiting. but the Bible is telling us a lot about waiting. So what is going on? Here's how I'd put it, everybody, and this is now my Advent thought for you the next four weeks. At the heart of it is the painful process of de-centering the ego. The ego, I want, I envision, I've got a plan, I've got a project, It's on my timetable. Let's get going. Come on, I know what I want to do. Yeah, that's most of us.

9:01 But the spiritual life is about letting go of that ego, de-centering that ego, and allowing God to be the Lord of my life. Not to undertake my project all the time, but to wait on the Lord. Painful? Uh-huh. Yeah, annoying, boring sometimes. But a key point in the spiritual life, everybody, is you're not in control. We put a high premium on control. I love being in control of things. Nothing wrong with that in itself. But when it comes to the deepest things in life, you're not in control. God's in control. And can you learn to live out of that acceptance, to let go of your need to manipulate everything and let God set the tone?

10:04 You know, I told you before about these insights from the initiation rituals of primal peoples. And one of these insights I've taken as a basic truth in the spiritual life, which is, your life is not about you. It's your life Uh-huh And you have to live it But it's not about you It's not about what you envision It's about what God wants And that means We sometimes have to wait De-center the ego Let God do what he wants to do Think here of the prophet Jonah Right? Jonah hears God's voice But no, no, no I'm not doing that And in control of his life he goes as far away as possible, gets on the boat, I am going to sail away from what God wants. What does God do?

10:55 He sends the great fish to swallow up Jonah. And then watch how he has to wait. It's one of the great prayers in the Bible, by the way, when Jonah prays from the depths and from the belly of the fish, the Dei Profundus, from these deep down places where he's made to wait. But here's what's very interesting. What's happening while he's waiting? is he's being brought by God exactly where God wants him to be. What's waiting? Just dumb suffering? No, no, no, not if you see with the eyes of faith. Waiting is turning one's life, sometimes painfully, over to the purposes of God. Accepting not my timetable, God's timetable, which is always right. Not the life I would lead of my own volition, but the life that God wants me to lead.

11:54 That involves waiting. You know, I've talked to my brother, Priest, about this a lot, the various promises we take, and everyone focuses on celibacy. But the one that I think is maybe most spiritually difficult and life-giving is obedience. When you make a promise of obedience, I remember putting my hands in the hands of Joseph Bernadine many years ago when I was ordained a priest. And I said, I promise obedience to you and your successors. You know, barely knowing what I was— I mean, I knew what I was promising, but I didn't know the contours of it at all.

12:32 What will he want me to do? What will his successors want me to do? Eventually, what will the successor of Peter want me to do? I didn't know. but I was surrendering my career at that point, my projects, my plans. And I was saying, I'm willing to wait to see what God wants me to do. It happens a lot to priests and bishops too. It's like, okay, I was a teacher at Mundelein. Well, what's next for you? I don't know. I was made rector of the seminary. Oh, well, you're rector. Rectors often become bishops. When are you becoming a bishop? I don't know. I become an auxiliary bishop. in Los Angeles of all places. Who knew? I had no expectation of that. Hey, well, your auxiliary, when do you become bishop of your own diocese? I don't know. And now here I am, bishop of my own diocese. Well, what's next for you? I don't know, I want to say. Because I made this gesture a long time ago.

13:27 I put my hands in the hands of somebody else. And I do what I'm told to do. And I wait to see what God's up to. Can I leave you with one more image from the Bible? And it's to prepare us for Christmas. Think of during Advent. What were the Magi doing? Well, during Advent, the Magi were looking. They were watching. They were waiting for a sign.

13:57 They weren't going to go where they wanted to go. They were patiently waiting for an indication. But listen now. When they got it, they moved. See, there's nothing passive about what I'm describing. When you wait, you're letting go. That's painful. I know you're letting go of your ego, but you're turning your life over to God, and when you get the indication from God, you go, you act, you move. I think that's the spiritual attitude.