Advent Devotional for December 22nd

The Pietà by Nicolas Coustou in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris

"Hear my cry, O God; om the end of the listen to my prayer.

From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I; for you are my refuge,
a stong tower aginst the enemy."

-Psalm 61:1-3

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Who is this who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you.

-T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

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The Cathedral of Norte Dame in Paris has, through the centuries, been a place of pilgrimage.  In the space before the high altar there is a Pietà, a statue of the Mother of Christ, holding her dead son in her arms.  Her face is a picture of inconsolable grief.  The eyes are wild, the lips silently screaming the question: "Why?"  Was this what the pilgrims found at the end of their journey - a question, to which no answer came?

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If, on leaving the cathedral, the visitor turns to look again at the Pietà, the distance reveals something that, closer to the scene, was hidden from view.  On either side of the central figure two angels are kneeling.  They do not touch her, but they hold her between them - silently watching, sharing her anguish, willing her on.  This, perhaps, is what the pilgrims saw.

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O unseen God, come among us.  In the pain.  In the mess.  Emmanuel.  God with us.  Amen

(St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 2005 Advent Devotional)