By Father James Zimmer
“Alone, alone about a dreadful wood
Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind,
Dreading to find its Father lest it find
The Goodness it dreaded is not good:
Alone, alone about our dreadful wood.”
So begins “Advent III,” by W. H. Auden, a poem found in the Liturgy of the Hours. Do we not actually dread to find that for which we’re looking and longing? It may not be good—according to our way of thinking. Or, perhaps, it will be too good.
When the children in C. S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” hear about Aslan, the great lion (the figure of Christ), they complain, “He doesn’t sound safe.” The reply comes, “He’s not safe, but he’s good.” Must we not all secretly admit, Benedict XVI asked at his Mass of installation as pope, we’re afraid God will take something from us? The “terrible good,” an earthquake, a fire to set the earth ablaze, on whom no one can gaze and live—is he (God) not too great, too good, too real for us? So, we “run lost” after a “good” we can handle. We can even do that in the name of God, of Catholicism, of Christianity, of “being right.” Uneasy, restless …
Way back, way deep, though, is the memory—the nostalgia, if you will—for the “Only one who is good.” Auden goes on in his poem:
“Where is that Law for which we broke our own?
Where now that Justice for which Flesh resigned
Her hereditary right to passion, Mind
His will to absolute power? Gone. Gone.
Where is that Law for which we broke our own?”
Forgetting the good, we become caricatures—grotesque, even. Still, the longing is there for the only good. Will we attend to this longing more than even our way of thinking, of measuring what is good?
“The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.
Was it to meet such grinning evidence
We left our richly odoured ignorance?
Was the triumphant answer to be this?
The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.”
We needn’t look far for this “grinning evidence.” St. Augustine declares the line between the counterfeit “City of Man” and the real “City of God” runs through the human heart—that is, my heart and yours. The “heart”—our deepest longing for infinite good, truth, justice, happiness—knows the difference. Will we follow our own ideas, or wait and watch for the surprise of God?
“We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible;
We who must die demand a miracle.”
Auden ends in wonder, more than hinting that the impossible has happened, is happening. “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived of the Holy Spirit (The Angelus Prayer). The Word became flesh. And dwells among us” (Jn 1:14). The “terrible good” comes almost unnoticed, and drawing hearts by love, sets the world ablaze. The Advent (coming) of God has happened, is happening, will happen. The Church embraces us once more with this great
of Sioux Falls.
season of the hope that does not disappoint.
