Fourth Sunday of Advent
“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (Luke 1:45)
Waiting. Mary and Elizabeth, two women waiting for the children that had been promised to them. Waiting to count their fingers and their toes. Waiting to endure the pain and risk of bringing them into the world. Waiting to hold them close and nuzzle their soft hair.
These days, I cannot think of mothers waiting during Advent without thinking of the mothers who wait with empty arms for children who may never return; those whose children were stolen as they arrived at this border seeking refuge; those whose ties this nation severed in intentional acts of cruelty. My nation the stand-in for Rome, for Herod, for cruel policies that seek to control the already terrorized with more terror, the already colonized with more control, the already grieving with more reasons to weep.
I’ve seen these children, the ones we took, the ones that might never be returned. I’ve looked in their eyes from both sides of this wall: peering through the chainlink fences that held them hostage at Tornillo. We tried to get them messages that we were fighting for them, that they were not alone - “No están solos” - but it wasn’t enough. It could not put them back in their mother’s arms.
What is it to wait for a child to arrive, for a child to return, when you do not know if the day will ever come?
We pray, may this separation be a brief and not a lasting one. May these mothers, these women who wait, feel the relief that Mary felt when she found Jesus in the Temple. May we remain unsettled along with all who have had their children taken, by cruel policies, by police brutality, by the prison industrial complex. As we sit with Mary and Elizabeth, may we ponder what it feels like to wait for empty arms to be filled once again. May we act to end this separation.
