Leaving room to be surprised

I have a weakness for fancy Advent calendars, the sort museums publish with artwork from their collection. My favorite is a fifteenth-century triptych, the Mérode Altarpiece, depicting today’s gospel, the Annunciation. Mary is curled up with a book in a sun-washed room, utterly serene, imagined by the artist in the moment just before she notices her angelic intruder and all her plans—for her day and for her life—were upended.

Mary, I’m certain, had no expectations of playing such a pivotal role in our salvation, no need to be anything more than who she was, the daughter of Anna and Joachim. She was as open to a day spent like any other day as she was open to bearing the Messiah. She left space to be surprised by God.

Reflecting on hospitality and Christmas in the Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day reminded us to leave space to be surprised by God. It would be easy to remember to make room for God, she noted, if we saw people with glowing neon signs hovering over their heads: Christ here. Or if they were beautifully dressed and serene like Mary in the painting I so delight in. People would have fought to give Mary a place to stay if she’d appeared in Bethlehem wrapped in gold cloth with a crown of stars, suggested Day. But I noticed that no one was falling over themselves to give money to the woman on the Broad Street train who said she was coming down from a heroin high and needed something to eat. 

We ought to help those we encounter, says Dorothy Day, not out of Christian duty, or because we are reminded of Christ or in case they might be Christ in disguise. We ought to do it with joy and ease because, perhaps to our surprise, they are all of them Christ. Make room!

— Adapted from M. Francl-Donnay, Waiting in Joyful Hope, Liturgical Press, 2020.

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Surprise! I had this image hanging over my desk for several years before I noticed the tiny Jesus flying in through the window, carrying a cross. For a detailed tour of the painting by Robert Campin see Kelly Bagdanov's post.