1^st Sunday of Advent C, November 30, 2003

Every year when Advent rolls round, it seems to catch me off guard. That’s surprising, in a way, since there are plenty of rude reminders of the approach of Christmas in our commercialization of the Lord’s nativity. But what I mean is the experience that this season of preparation itself lacks any preparation and so I find myself hit suddenly with the purple vestments, the Advent wreath and hymns and I know that I’m supposed to have an altered mood. There’s something somber about this liturgical period, even though it is not quite the same as the Lent before Easter. Part of the problem may be the ever accelerating pace of life: time moves forward very quickly in adult life. When we were children, and in school, things seemed better paced and we could fit in, with this slower speed of life, with a real feeling of waiting, of longing, of yearning for the coming of the Lord. My dream would be to return to that spirit of my youth and walk slowly into the Advent season and relish the strains of its unique sounds.

I have dwelt on this subjective apperception of Advent, not for a self-indulgent quest to recapture the days of my youth, but because Advent is something that–like Christmas–has to enter into one’s very heart and soul if it is not to be an empty, vain observance. I believe that taking on an ‘Adventine’ disposition is precisely what this season is designed to do. I want to feel a little of the heartache of the people of Israel who had been hungering for the appearance of their Messiah. I want the crying of the Prophets to singe my ears with their ardent admonitions to prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths. I want to fill my mind with the lessons of sobriety and vigilance that are necessary in order to be able to stand upright before the great King at His awesome coming. Like John the Baptist, I want to diminish myself so that He may increase. I want Jesus to be so fixed in my mind, as an indelible image, that He would be ever present there in my every activity, and even in my dreams.

I want to have the longing of a pious Jew who looks out his window asking himself if perhaps this is the day when He will finally come. I want to be like the aged Simeon who had looked forward to the consolation of Israel and who then had the baby Jesus put into his blest arms, recognizing the fulfillment of all the hope of Judaism. I want to go out into the desert to see and hear the oddly attractive figure of John the Baptist and to be stung by his warning that the Messiah’s coming will spell misery to anyone with the yeast of sinful desires in his heart. I want to be present at Mass like the Christians of the first century, facing Eastward with a sense of anticipation that the Lord might come at any moment.

Advent must affect me, change me. I have to walk into it, wiping my feet of the filth and bloated spirit of worldliness and allow its sobering messages and its figures to impress themselves on my soul. And I know that if I do that, I will be thinking and feeling with the Church (sentire cum Ecclesia) and that this is the only way that the coming of Christmas will have a real spiritual meaning for me. I have to become impressionable, pliable in the hands of Mother Church and groan a little in my desiring to possess Jesus more completely.

I have only four short weeks to accomplish this. I need to count the days and savor them, one by one. I wish to take in well the majestic, stirring words of the Scriptures that the Church lays out for me today:

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill my promise. In those days, in that time, I will raise up for David a just shoot; In those days Jerusalem shall dwell secure. Strengthen then your hearts to be blameless in holiness before God at the coming of our Lord Jesus. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you may escape the tribulations and be able to stand before the Son of Man.

And I need to observe better the literal meaning and the spirit of the liturgical texts of the Roman Missal:

To you I have lifted up my soul, O my God, in you I trust, I will not be ashamed. Whoever waits for you will not be confounded. Grant this desire to your faithful, we beseech you, almighty God, that, meeting your coming Christ with righteous works when gathered together at his right hand, they may merit to possess the heavenly kingdom.

This is what we are meant to do now for a brief and fast-advancing period of time. We need to fill our lungs with the fresh, clean and crisp air of Advent and let it awaken us from sloth, stir up a valiant Christian spirit and rejuvenate us. And then Jesus can become our All and we will possess Him and love so that when He comes again–or when He comes to get us–we will meet Him with the lamps of our souls burning bright with anticipation of the indescribable delight of the fulfillment of all our desires.