December 16/Third Friday of Advent
All who keep the sabbath free from profanation and hold to my covenant,
Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer. ~ Isa. 56.6-7
In Hebrew, “sabbath” literally means a stop, a pause, a cessation of activity. To insist on Sabbath observance, as the Lord does in today’s reading from Isaiah, is to issue a cease-and-desist order, or as Psalm 46 expresses it: “Be still, and know that I am God.” How hard it is for us to be still. Some years ago, when I was interviewing college seniors for a post-graduate fellowship, I asked a highly accomplished student what his least favorite sound was; he quickly answered, “The sound of silence.” All of us have a vested interest in keeping the volume of our lives on high. The prospect of silence scares us. What might we hear? Safer to rush along to the buzzing and pinging of our technology-dominated lives, stiff-arming the need to pause and to reflect. What, though, if we made an effort truly to honor the Sabbath, to put aside the frenetic activity, to sit in quiet reflection? Isaiah’s “holy mountain” is a place of safety, peace, and joy; we make our way to its heights, paradoxically, not by gearing up for a power-climb, but by mindfully withdrawing from the world’s onward rush and focusing on God. As the ticking of the clock and the call of the to-do lists recede for a little while, we are able to listen for the divine word. And we may experience the riches of that sabbath time as we meditate on God’s purpose for us and feel the abiding joy of God’s dwelling within our hearts. As Sister Ruth Burrows, an English Carmelite nun, wrote, “we must realize that what we have to do is allow ourselves to be loved, to be there for love to love us.” In the stillness of prayer, we make space and time for that love.
Lord of the sabbath, Grant me the strength to stop the perpetual motion of my life, and to pause every day for recollection and reflection in your presence. Amen.
To hear “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” sung at Westminster Abbey, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1MN3chW1Hk&t=39s
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121622.cfm
