Waiting

In today’s reflection on the daily mass readings, Fr Richard considers the importance of waiting in an increasingly busy and impatient world.

Readings for sixth day in the octave of Christmas (30 December): 1 John 2:12-17; Ps 96:7-10; Luke 2:36-40. Text of readings can be found here.

Someone once worked out that the average person spends one to two weeks every year just waiting. Waiting in traffic. Waiting in queues. Waiting on hold. Waiting for the kettle to boil, the screen to load, the meeting to start. We don’t notice it because it comes in tiny fragments — thirty seconds here, five minutes there — but by the end of the year it adds up to days of our lives spent doing… nothing much at all.

And yet the gospel today introduces us to Anna, a woman who has spent years waiting — not in frustration, but in faith. Day after day in the Temple, praying, fasting, watching. When the child Jesus is brought in, she recognises him immediately. Her waiting has tuned her vision. While others see just another baby, Anna sees the longed-for Messiah.

In this in-between time, after the mad rush of Christmas and just before the turning of a new year, Anna gently challenges us. What if our waiting is not wasted time? What if those moments — in queues, delays, quiet spaces — are invitations to notice God already present? Christmas reminds us that God comes not in the rush, but in the waiting — and blessed are those who learn, like Anna, to wait well.

Mass today is in St Mary’s at 6:30pm

If you’d like more resources for daily prayer then check out our Day by Day pages.