Starting
Point Power of God greater than all evil
The following reflection is one of a series by Sr. Elizabeth
West of Harefield, Australia, on the O Antiphons, the alleluia verses from the
Liturgy of the Hours traditionally recited during vespers in the latter days of
Advent.
By ELIZABETH A. WEST
Ero cras -- I shall be
there tomorrow!
Take the first letters of the words of the O Antiphons in their
Latin expression -- Sapientia, (Wisdom), Adonia (Lord),
Radix (Root), Clavis (Key), Oriens (Dawn), Rex
(King), Emmanuel (Emmanuel). Read them backwards and you have ero
cras a Latin phrase that means I shall be there tomorrow. I
laughed with pure delight when I read it. Word play enchants me. But, as this
day edged into night, laughter quieted. The antiphons bear meaning more than I
know, and truly, yes, the promise of God is always I shall be there
tomorrow.
The words were comforting as we came to sing out evening prayer.
The countryside was quiet. Sheep grazed, birds fed off the insect population,
and small beetles passed the time of day as they foraged in the grasses for
their own particular delicacies of grubs. Idyllic one could say -- but only if
you overlooked the fact that fair in front of us were two very dead rabbits.
Not a pretty sight, but somehow symbolic of the underlying darkness of our
world.
Nature knows no niceties. Survival dictates that dog eat dog when
hunger drives. The cutest little blue wren eats voraciously of the insects and
grubs that are silly enough to be in the same patch of ground he is. There is
not a lot of security in a world populated by so many species competing for
survival in the same small patch of earth.
I guess we humans would look no different to an observer than do
the inhabitants of my backyard. We compete, grub for what we want, need, or
feel driven to take. Our lives are as fragile as the smallest aphid, and as
vulnerable to the sudden swoop of birdwing and the crack of closing doom.
Yet tonight we sang: O Key of David and Scepter of the House
of Israel, you open, and no one shuts. You close, and no one opens. Come and
deliver us from the prisons that hold us, for we are seated in darkness
oppressed by the shadows of death.
Death and life are intimate companions. We are born to die -- our
bodies break and crack with age. Sudden deaths we also know. But when all is
said and done, the antiphon we sang this night provides calming. Within
apparent chaos is order. Within the death, new life. You open, and no one
shuts, we sang. You close, and no one opens.
The long and the short of it is that the power of God is more than
all the evil that we can do to one another or to this world. In spite of us,
God will be God to us. We can doubt it, we can blind ourselves to it, but, in
the end, we are not beetles, or bugs or birds that prey on one another because
that is the order of their creating. We are images of God. Born of God, like
unto God. Even the worst of us is a spark of the divine. But, we are fragile,
and oh so vulnerable.
So tonight we sang for Christ to overcome us. We prayed for Christ
to pull us out of our inner prisons of mind and heart, to break through our
walls of isolation and open for us new vistas of grace. Maranatha! We
cried: Come, Lord Jesus. Free us. And after darkness comes the dawning.
I am glad this night for dead rabbits, for the strangely violent
world of insects and grubs, birds and beasts. I am glad for the strength of
this antiphon of promise. I am glad God is God for me and for the world. I am
glad for the piquant humor of whatever mind read the antiphons backwards and in
Latin, and gave me the promise of that even as I cry, Maranatha!
Come Lord Jesus, there is an answer: Ero cras! I shall be there
tomorrow.
Sr. Elizabeth A. West is a member of the Australian Province of
the Little Company of Mary. She is the retreat director for the Overdale
Retreat Centre in Harefield, Australia. Her e-mail address is
ewest@lcm.org.au
National Catholic Reporter, December 8,
2000
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