The church prays Psalm 110 every Sunday and every Feast Day, “From the womb before the dawn I begot you.”

How many of us are or have been afraid of the dark? Whenever dark descends, there is something of trepidation in all of us. We are meant for the light, not the darkness. And therefore, darkness fills us with dread. It fills us with fear, and the capital fear: fear of the unknown. It’s a visceral human reaction to the darkness, a reaction dispelled by another visible human need: that for flame, and that for light. You see, you and I are meant for light. We are meant to be attracted to light, attracted to God that is Light.

When I was growing up in England, there was a very popular beautifully illustrated children’s book. It’s called The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark. It’s a very beautiful story about a baby owl who, unlike most owls, does not like the dark at all. And Mummy Owl has to help Baby Owl to see that actually the dark is nothing to be afraid of. Mummy Owl arranges for Plop, the baby owl, to fall out of the tree and onto the ground to go and meet various people who work in the night. And what Plop discovers is the dark is exciting; the dark is kind; the dark is fun; the dark is necessary; the dark is fascinating; the dark is wonderful; and the dark is beautiful.

In order to see the light, we need to know where it is not so that it might shine more fully and more strongly. And all of us, as human beings, began in the dark. We began in the dark, in the warmth of our mother’s wombs, and we had to be born into the light, had to be drawn into the light.

The Rorate Mass, the Mass of Our Lady in Advent, is one which draws upon the themes of the Annunciation. The Gospel from the First Chapter of Luke recounts that incredible moment when Our Lady saw heaven and earth rent in two and the appearance of the Angel Gabriel who came to announce to her the proposition that would change the world. The church knows something deep about the mystery of humanity and human life. The Incarnate Word is already here. He’s already here but hidden. The great Feast of Christmas is not the feast whereby we celebrate the Word becoming flesh. The great Feast of Christmas is the feast at which we celebrate the Word-become-flesh becoming visible, entering into our midst for us to be able to see and to perceive with all of our senses.

Being visible, then, is a matter of secondary importance to the reality which is already present, the reality which we know from the truth of the Angel’s greeting to Mary, Chaire kecharitomene (“Rejoice, already-graced One!”) and Our Lady’s reply, Fiat mihi (“Be it to me”) and the presence of the Messiah in her womb. But at the birth of Jesus, the heavens declare His glory with the Angels’ great anthem, “Glory to God in the Highest.”  Every starry night the Cosmos recalls this revelation in a marvelous light show proclaiming His visible presence in the world – Emmanuel, God with us.  But before His birth, He was already with us, in the dark of the womb.  And He is with us, within our midst, yet hidden, even now, in the dark of our lives. In the splendor of a candlelit Mass, our senses perceive more acutely the humility of His coming in the form of bread, a coming so elegant but simple; a coming that permits us to approach and consume Him, to bear Him in our bodies, as He enters into our darkness, with healing grace, light and life.

How often in our lives the Lord is in our midst, and yet hidden in the darkness. Advent, then, the Season of Advent, is in that mysterious Hebrew phrase, “The womb of the morning.”.   “From the womb of the morning, I have begotten you.”  In Advent, we delve into the darkness. We delve into the womb, but not without the light of Christ. We don’t have to pretend that He has not come. We know how this story ends, and it is in the light of the Incarnation that we see anything at all. The dark, it is true, is unknown, but it is not empty. And therefore, our fear is based on things that are beyond us. Yet we see that the dark is in fact full of life, because the darkness is no darkness to God. Only light.