Awake and At Rest

The end (November) and beginning (December, Advent) of the liturgical year is full of admonitions: Awaken, the night is spent and the day is dawning! Be alert and vigilant: the Lord will come like a thief in the night! Be sober and on guard for the devil roams about seeking whom he can devour! At the same time we are promised that those who labor will be given REST! We consider St. Joseph who receives all his heavenly revelations and directions in the passivity of sleep. And we recall with the psalmist: "if the Lord does not build the house...in vain is your rising so early, your going so late to rest...for he gives to his beloved in their sleep." So, we are being urged to be awake and yet to rest! Which is it? An easy fix would be to go with Ecclesiates:  "...there is a time for everything...a time to rest, and a time to awake from resting." But this may be another case where the Word of God would have us pair seeming contraries into a deeper harmony whereby they actually interpenetrate, illuminate and actualize each other. And so, the "rest" of the Lord is not unconsciousness or slumber, but the inner serenity and harmony of trust and surrender. This is a rest that does not dim or lessen awareness but rather awakens and sharpens it. Who is the better watch guard: the one who is fatigued or the one who is rested? And so, the genuine calm and integrity that comes with "rest in the Lord" actually awakens us and sensitizes us. It is the opposite of the numbing, de-sensitizing intoxication of addiction, agitation, anxiety, and resentment. "Resting in the Lord" is a spiritual and psychological receptivity and trust that roots and centers us; it preserves and channels our energy; it heightens our sensitivity and vigilance so that we are docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and reactive, promptly and forcefully, to the initiatives of the Evil One. So that, paradoxically, it is when we are at rest that we are alert, vigilant, poised and ready to do what pleases our Lord!