Today is New Year’s Day in the Church. Having celebrated Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe last Sunday the Church year ended on a high note. Today with the first Sunday in Advent we embark on a new liturgical year anticipating the coming of Christ in time and in eternity.
The Church year is out of sync with the world. It differs from the calendar year, fiscal years, academic years, sports years. And that is appropriate since Our Lord’s Kingdom is not of this world and Christ’s teachings call us to rise above the barrenness of the secular world. For instance the secular season of Christmas is already fully underway, although more and more mentioning the name of Christ is frowned upon, even legally prohibited. We need the season of Advent to help us avoid falling into the worldly whirl.
With the Christmas holiday less than a month away, many will identify with the verse in today’s Gospel: “beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap.” The Christmas season can be a time of anxiety as we have seen with the fights that broke out in stores on Black Friday, or a time of joy with family, friends and faith shared.
Our Lord however was not talking about Christmas Day but the Day of Judgment. That is what we need to prepare for while also enjoying the spirit and traditions of Christmas. To prepare for the coming of the Lord in all its manifestations this month and all the year we need to watch, we need to pray and we need to grow in holiness.
To watch means to undergo an examination of conscience, to take the time to look around us and at ourselves and see what is really going on. Are we running at another’s pace or our own? Do we notice God’s presence in our lives or do we take His blessings for granted. Do we see each day as a gift to be enjoyed and used well or a block of time to be scheduled. Do we see others as fellow members of God’s family or an obstacle to or vehicle for getting what we want? We need to watch.
To be prepared for the coming of Christ we also need to pray. Special prayers for the season such as lighting candles on the advent wreath are wonderful and helpful which we will do shortly. Participating in Advent Vespers with Benediction which we will do Sunday evenings is an uplifting prayer. We can pray less formally as well. Prayer is referencing our lives and world back to God, raising our hearts beyond the pressures of this time to the One whose time is eternal.
A little boy said his night prayer. He thanked God for his mommy and daddy, his grandparents and then stopped. “What about your brothers and sisters,” his mother asked him, knowing that he had been fighting with them all day. He shook his head and said, “I don’t do kids.” Can we pray for our brothers and sisters especially the ones that are the hardest to love?
A spiritual writer related this story: There once was a cage hanging off a cliff on the shores of Mexico which was kept at a depth of 80 feet below the surface of the clear waters. In it were some of the most beautiful pearls ever in existence. They had belonged to a duchess. The pearls had lost their color and some suggested that the only way they could be restored to their original brilliancy was to immerse them in the depths of the sea from which they had come. For years they were in the crystal waters and sure enough over time they recovered their lost beauty. His point was that the only way to regain the lost luster of our inner life, our spiritual life is to go back to the depths from which the soul first received its bright touch of the divine.
Recalling our baptisms and confirmations and the promises we made, reflecting on the excitement of our first communions, the love expressed at marriage or ordination, the awe at the miracle of birth of a child. God gifted us with memory so we can be grateful and renewed. Advent offers us that opportunity to once again experience the beautiful touch of Christ, evidenced in a child in a manger, and be restored. We need to pray.
And to prepare for the coming of Christ we need to grow in holiness, which means to better live Christian virtues. Recall the cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance; how well do we live them each day. Recall the theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. How well we live them is often reflected in little ways. Can we patiently wait in line, take the time to listen to someone at home who needs to talk, cope with the foibles of others, own up to our own mistakes, resist the inevitable temptations our human weakness brings forth, and when necessary in a hostile culture defend the Church and keep Christ in Christmas.
The story is told of two families who asked a rabbi to settle a dispute about the boundaries of some land they both claimed. One said that though they had never used it, they had received the land as an inheritance. They had the maps and papers to prove it. The other family described how they had lived on and worked the land for years. They didn’t have papers but their calluses and sore backs, the harvest and produce of the land proved it. The rabbi studied them. Then he knelt down on the land and put his ear to the ground. Finally he stood up, looked at both families and said, “I had to listen to both of you and I had to listen to the land. The land has spoken. Neither of you owns the land you stand on. It is the land that owns you.” Who or what owns us? The pressures and priorities of Christmas time can tell the story. We need to grow in holiness and deepen our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
My prayer for you this season of Advent is what St. Paul wished to the church in Thessalonica in our 2nd reading: “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all . . . so as to strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus.”
This can be a special Christmas and church year if we take the time this Advent season and every day to prepare by watching, by praying and by growing in holiness.