The materials for A Sanctified Art* for Gaudete Sunday, the joyful 3rd Sunday of Advent, invite us to step up to answer God's call in the face of fear. But what, precisely, is God calling each of us to do?

I strongly believe that the process of doubt is sacred. God calls us to wrestle. How do we move through the world with any certainty amidst our doubt? And how do we ask God to draw nearer to us and to help bring joy?

The Problem of False Certainty

Advent originated as a penitential fast in preparation for Christmas. Like Laetare Sunday for Lent, Gaudete Sunday serves as a break in this penitence, when we may rejoice in the nearness of the Lord's coming.

The materials by A Sanctified Art reference the Annunciation: Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel, who says to her, "Listen: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus." Initially, though, "she was greatly troubled by his words," and expresses doubt in the form of a common sense question: "How will this be, since I have not been intimate with a man?" But in the end, she consents, saying, "Yes, I am a servant of the Lord; let this happen to me according to your word." Included in this encounter is Gabriel saying to Mary: "And look, your relative Elizabeth has also become pregnant with a son in her old age—although she was called barren, she is now in her sixth month!" (Luke 1:26-38)

Gaudete Sunday and the Journey to Joy

At this point, is Mary joyous? Maybe. But in Luke's narrative, Mary doesn't overtly express joy until the Magnificat, Mary's hymn of praise, in which she says: "My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has begun to rejoice in God my Savior, because he has looked upon the humble state of his servant." (Luke 1:46-55) Mary doesn't speak the Magnificat until she visits Elizabeth—an event called the Visitation, which happens in the narrative right after the Annunciation: "In those days Mary got up and went hurriedly into the hill country, to a town of Judah, and entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She exclaimed with a loud voice, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child in your womb! And who am I that the mother of my Lord should come and visit me?'" (Luke 1:39-45) The Magnificat is Mary's response to Elizabeth.

What happened during that journey? And why did Mary hurry to visit Elizabeth? There are many interpretations, of course. Traditional Roman Catholic interpretation is that Mary knew fully the veracity of both miracles, because she had infused knowledge, a supernatural gift allowing her deep comprehension of God's will, and therefore hurried to Elizabeth to help an elder in need with no regard for herself. I don't believe in infused knowledge. A more human read is that Mary, knowing the immense physical and social risk that she was in as someone who has conceived out of wedlock, sought out the companionship of someone who would "get it", as Elizabeth was someone else struck by a miracle. Perhaps this was the case.

I imagine that Mary needed validation of Gabriel's words; why did the angel tell her about Elizabeth in the first place? Did Mary need to see Elizabeth's miracle for herself before fully believing in her own? Was Mary relieved to see that the angel wasn't an evil spirit lying to her? And was she vindicated by Elizabeth's words: "And who am I that the mother of my Lord should come and visit me?"

Mary's own journey to joy had to have come with an immense amount of wrestling and doubt. Popular depictions of Mary's pregnancy include scenes of her betrothed, Joseph, rescuing her from being publicly stoned to death, which was the punishment for adultery in Jewish law at the time. (Deuteronomy 22:23-29) It's easy for us, over two millennia later with Gospels, Scripture, and the benefit of hindsight with all-knowing narrators, to gloss over how fraught and terrifying this must have been for Mary. We take what happens over the next few decades as a foregone conclusion, as if there isn't room for free will and God doesn't actively work with us in His plan.

Cheap Humility and the Sin of Presumption

When I think of the Annunciation, I think of the rosary. The same with the Visitation and the Magnificat, which are treated as one. Both are part of the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary, which we are called to contemplate as we pray it. This contemplation bears spiritual fruit: the fruit of the mystery of the Annunciation is humility, and the fruit of the mystery of the Visitation is love of neighbor.

How does the Roman Catholic church (and other conservative Christians) teach humility and love of neighbor? With something I call, "The Pro-Life Hallmark Card Lecture". It goes a little something like this:

It's obvious that God always wants life.
If you are a virtuous woman, you will humble yourself to God's grand design and welcome becoming a mother.
If you don't want to be a mother, there's something wrong with you, or at least, you should wait until the miracle growing inside of you *clicks* and you are struck with awe by the miracle of life.

(I have really wrestled with the content for this 3rd Sunday of Advent, and I continue to do so. For me, it has brought up a pointed critique of conservative Christianity and the pro-life movement. I want to acknowledge that this may be uncomfortable for readers, including the community at Haven. Please accept this piece as a window into my process of wrestling with God, which I am trying to do with as little preconceived notions and prejudices as possible.)

In my view, conservative Christians use the word humility as a bludgeon: submit yourself to someone else's notion of God's will, whether that is an ordained religious authority interpreting Scripture, or a paper Pope and one of its many self-ordained archbishops. Even love of neighbor is twisted: Mary in her pregnant state had no regard for herself and hastened to help her elderly relative, Elizabeth. There is no room for her own questioning or journey of discernment. She is painted as a conservative ideal of a perfect mother, obviously joyous in her motherhood, glad to sacrifice.

I call this cheap humility. It's easy to exhort others to "do the right thing" and not offer one iota of concrete support to actually follow through. It's a symptom of a toxic pro-life movement that uses guilt and coercion while simultaneously dismantling all of the social support structures, religious and secular, that would actually nurture and protect life. In evangelical circles, far more money goes toward feel-good contemporary Christian music concerts than actual philanthropy. Worse yet are the sentiments expressed: "women who are 'promiscuous' need to be punished", mixed with "why should I pay for someone else's child?" The latter is especially loud if the child is a demographic undesirable, like a person of color.

There is a particularly perverse form of the sin of presumption that suffuses this. This includes the notion that anyone can truly know God's will. (As a reminder, not even Jesus knows when He will return. [Matthew 24:36]) It's doubly presumptuous to think that anyone can know God's will for someone else.

The Error of Biblical Sufficiency

I don't want to be overly cynical. It's possible to chalk up this false certainty as a desire for self-serving authoritarian control. Certainly, some people fall into this camp. But I'm also certain that there are many good people of conscience who simply cannot tolerate uncertainty. That's the thinking behind the notion that the Bible is fully sufficient: that the Bible contains a clear universally applicable rule or formula for every situation. The idea is that God would not be so cruel as to leave His people in doubt about how to live.

I find this idea incredibly naive. God calls us to grow by wrestling, and this includes wrestling with uncertainty. Yes, doubt doesn't feel good. But embracing the struggle is necessary. It's overly simplistic, and quite frankly, insulting, to insist that the struggle is merely a struggle to come to terms with God's "obvious will".

Divine Doubt and Wrestling

What must we do instead? After all, most of us don't see angels. Even those of us who do must still "test the spirits". (1 John 4:1) There is an essential humility in this: no matter what, I must call upon all of my faculties and continuously do the work of discernment.

Scriptural study is necessary, but is not enough, especially if that Scriptural study is purely in a translated language like English and is not paired with Biblical and other scholarship.
Reaching out to others in community is necessary, but that is also not enough: we are warned not to be "conformed to this present world" (Romans 12:2)—of course this includes other Christians; it would be arrogant to think otherwise.
Doing deep prayer and introspection is necessary, and like the others, is not enough. The Bible calls us to deep introspection in many places, like 2 Corinthians 13:5 and Lamentations 3:40. But we can get lost in our own feelings if we don't stay present to the fullness of Creation, including other people. Unlike pop psychology renditions of Buddhist-lite "mindfulness", being present is far more than simply being present with our own feelings as they meander and change.

In my wrestling and deep soul searching, I have looked high and low for ways to shortcut this process. Yes, I have dabbled in divination. (Pro tip: not to be trusted.) And I'll share one of my most vulnerable secrets: I have seen and continue to see spirits. (Also: not to be trusted. [And maybe I merely hallucinate.]) I have consulted Scripture and religious texts of many traditions, and everything seems to fall short at one point or another, including the Bible. I am certainly not a literalist, and on a daily basis go back and forth on whether or not I actually am Christian. As a bleeding heart Universalist, I cannot in good conscience accept most of the Old Testament or most of the fire and brimstone of the New Testament.

So what can I trust? I have found nothing that makes wrestling easier, or gets me easily out of wrestling in the first place. I want to share some of the things I've come across in my travels, in hopes of connecting with the broader Haven community:

Ignatian Spirituality and the Discernment of Spirits

St. Ignatius had a term, "motions of the soul", which contemporary theologians name as a form of discernment of spirits. Thoughts and feelings arise inside, which St. Ignatius identified as good or evil spirits, based on whether they inspire consolation or desolation, whether they bring us closer to God in faith, hope, and love, whether they inspire service.

St. Ignatius lays out 22 rules for discerning between consolation and desolation. They're incredibly powerful. But they can also be abused. There is no shortage of people who perform acts of great evil out of a sense of moral superiority and sleep with a clear conscience. I say this as a novice to Ignatian spirituality, but I find this type of sentimentality to be greatly limited.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) and the 8 C's of Self

"Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapeutic model that views every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts guided by a core Self." (https://ifs-institute.com/) In IFS, everyone has a Self, a state that we can access as we "unblend" from the protective and wounded parts of our psyche. This Self-state is defined by Richard Schwartz, creator of IFS, as having 8 C's: curiosity, compassion, clarity, connectedness, creativity, courage, confidence, and calm. I have found IFS work to be profoundly healing and pivotal in my spiritual growth journey.

But I see two key limitations:

I have encountered New Age folks who insist that God, Source, Self, Higher Self, or all sorts of framings of divinity, can only be gentle (8 C's). This is the spiritual undercurrent of IFS and its community: God is never harsh. I don't agree. I believe harshness has a place in God's plan, and that unlike us, God can and does wield harshness skillfully. To use gentleness as the ultimate litmus test for what is divine spiritually bypasses us out of the hard and necessary work of discerning and finding balance.
In my experience, we cannot simply dip into Self-state and know exactly what to do. This is a fantasy. And by now, I've encountered enough difficult and unpleasant people who insist that they've achieved permanent Self-state and are moving through the world with perfect kindness. This is an emotionally avoidant delusion, and all too common in New Age communities.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Wise Mind

"Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a type of psychotherapy (often called 'talk therapy') used to treat people with certain mental health conditions that involve problems in regulating emotions… In DBT, the term “dialectical” refers to finding a balance between two seemingly opposing concepts: acceptance and change. DBT patients learn to accept themselves and their emotions and thoughts as they are, without judgment, and work toward making positive changes to build a life worth living." (https://yalemedicine.org/)

There are 4 modules of DBT: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Each is a collection of tools to employ to come to a place of wise mind, a state of integrated and holistic balance including the emotional and rational selves. I have found the tools of DBT to be transformational, and it was my starting point into prayer, meditation, and spiritual growth.

My big takeaway from DBT is that balance is hard work, and wisdom is hard work. It takes a tremendous amount of effort over time, across many areas of life, to hold the tension of the dialectic. And there is not some binary yes/no, as if we are either fully in line with God's will or Higher Self or we are not. It's a subtle spectrum.

Finding the Balance

The wisdom found across Ignatian discernment, IFS, and DBT, despite their differences, is uniform: The spiritual life requires a constant, active wrestling to integrate our fragmented parts and impulses. There is no formula. Our certainty does not come from finding a single right answer, but from the patient, persistent effort to hold the tension between acceptance and change—to respond from a place of Wise Mind/Self/Consolation, not impulsive reaction. That hard work is the true humility.

Closing: The Sacred Act of Consenting to Uncertainty

We return to Mary, standing terrified and confused before Gabriel. Her journey to joy was not immediate; it began on an uncertain journey to see Elizabeth, seeking validation and solidarity. The Magnificat is the product of that courageous visitation, not the starting point.

The cheap humility of the Hallmark card lecture demands unearned certainty and immediate obedience, often leading to spiritual bypassing and the use of Wrath against others. But true spiritual maturity demands the humility to admit: "I don't know God's will fully, especially not for others."

The sacred work of discernment—the persistent effort to move from the fragmentation of impulse to the integration of the Wise Mind/Self—is how we answer the call today. Wrestling makes us whole.

Discussion Prompt

I offer these prompts for your reflection, asking you to move past the intellectual critique toward embodied, practical faith:

Identifying Presumption: In the last week, where have you caught yourself acting with "cheap humility"—that is, where did you use the certainty of your political or spiritual vision to bludgeon (condemn, dismiss, or disregard) another person or even a part of yourself?
The Absence of Joy: Mary’s initial state was fear, not joy. She needed to visit Elizabeth for validation before singing the Magnificat. When you feel the call of God or justice today, does it feel like dread, obligation, or joy? What is the "Elizabeth"—the safe, validating community or person—you need to visit to move from isolated doubt toward integrated joy?
The Practice of the Pause (Discernment): You have explored Ignatian, IFS, and DBT models for discerning the true path. What specific, small discipline (a question, a boundary, a somatic check-in) can you implement this week to enforce Mary’s "patient pause" and ensure your next major decision comes from a place of Wise Mind/Self?

Jenny Kwan is a member of Haven Berkeley. She is a queer, first-generation Chinese-American trans woman who is passionate about building true solidarity through mutual aid. Her work focuses on the intersection of ancient Christian spiritual disciplines (like contemplative prayer and virtue ethics) with contemporary somatic and psychological healing practices. She believes that the inner work of trauma recovery is the essential foundation for effective social justice and genuine community.

* In Advent 2025 Haven is sharing a devotional called “What do you fear?” by the folks at A Sanctified Art. You can receive access to these materials by contacting Leah, or by attending a Haven service in Advent 2025.