The following reflection refers to the Mass readings found here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Bible can be a heartbreaking book. It’s about people, after all. Every story, every narrative, every parable—they may surprise and puzzle us, they may challenge us, but they always speak to something deep within us. We know these stories. We live them every day.

Today’s readings tell the stories of two couples who yearned so hard for something they did not have. They had no child. The painful word used to describe this situation is “barren.” We all know what barren means. It means lifeless, desolate, empty, dry. It means hopeless. It means heartbreak.

The yearning of the wife of Manoah, of Elizabeth and Zechariah, we feel it deep in our gut. We have all yearned this hard and come up barren. We have all felt dry and desolate. Barrenness is not only about the presence or absence of children. It is about being human. It is about yearning.

The sacred answer that emerges from this barrenness is the promise of divine faithfulness. And whether the promise is for children or salvation, it always leads to new life. This story of longing and fulfillment, of desiring and promising, of palpable need and abundant gift, is the story of the Bible from creation to gospel—from the barren earth, void and lifeless, to the incarnation, God-literally-with-us.

As Advent leans toward Christmas, we lean even harder into this yearning. And just there—on the horizon, where the days begin to lengthen—we can see it: a child is born, the fulfillment of all our yearning.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Amy Ekeh, “Lean into the Yearning” from the December 2022 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022). Used with permission.