Preparing a mansion
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Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
-This Sunday’s Collect
The collect for the fourth Sunday in Advent leads us into the season of the incarnation well. It asks that we, ourselves, somehow become a mansion for Christ to live in on this earth. If you think about it, that’s pretty awesome. Our own bodies are a place for Christ to live each day, and through our own lives, Christ enters into this world.
I love the quote from Saint Therese of Avila:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
In Advent we await the incarnation of Christ in the manger, yes. But we also await the incarnation of Christ in us, and in this world, and in the world yet to come, all at once. Just like Mary, we are called to bear Christ into the world through our own bodies, words and actions. Just like Joseph, we are called to say yes, even when the future is unclear.
The collect also points out that we need God’s help to be able to prepare this mansion for Christ to live in. The prayer asks God to purify our conscience. I am thinking that one of the biggest roadblocks we have to loving God, ourselves and our neighbors lies in the shame we carry about ourselves. I’m not talking about a healthy conscience that feels guilty when we know we need to do something better or to make amends for something we did wrong. I’m talking about a corrupted conscience, that continually berates us with an internal voice of shame and hate, telling us that we’re unlovable, unredeemable, worthless people.
Unless we can trust that we are, indeed, God’s own beloved children (even when we make mistakes) we cannot believe that Christ would ever want to visit us, let alone live in us. And so we turn our backs to many possibilities that God offers us every day in those daily visitations, leaving God knocking on the unresponsive door of our hearts.
So please do purify our conscience, God! Help us to know that you forgive our sins and offer us a fresh start every day in a life that really is life. Enable us to turn toward you and say yes - more often than we turn away from you saying no. May we, like Mary, be a mansion prepared for Christ, and bear Christ into his world. Christ has no body now but ours.
