Is it just me or does it seem
almost impossible that Christmas is less than a week away?
And do you also share my sense of being unprepared? If you don’t, please send me an email as soon as you get home and let me in on your secret!
I saw a video this week that really captures how I’m feeling. [Unfortunately, it’s one we purchased only for viewing in church – even if I did know how to post it here! Suffice to say it was frantic!]
What do you think? For all the joys of Advent, I think that short video does a good job of showing the challenges we face in the home stretch before Christmas.
What's the answer to the problem?
I found a list of five tips for staying calm at Christmas: 1) simplify, 2) be realistic, 3) have fun, 4) get fresh air, 5) savor.
It took me a couple of seconds to realize that number five said savor not saviour.
Our liturgy for this fourth Sunday corrects that colossal mistake. It points us to the fact that we have a Saviour. And that’s truly something to savor as we reflect on the readings today.
The Gospel asks us to think about what we actually believe about this feast that seems to have so much busyness attached to it. Look closely at Elizabeth: she’s not distracted by the excitement of the visit from her cousin Mary. She’s not heaving a sigh of relief at the arrival of someone to help out during her pregnancy.
No, Elizabeth knows what’s going on. Like her child filled with the Holy Spirit, she knows precisely what's happening and thus greets Mary with faith and hope. Nothing in this encounter is secondary; Elizabeth is focused entirely on the fulfillment of God’s ancient promises.
In the first reading, Micah has only a shadow of Elizabeth’s clear thinking; his astonishing prophecy “glimpses more of the future than the prophet could have possibly realized.”
[See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Light of the World, 263-264]
It’s wonderful to think that we are not just glimpsing God’s plan. Like Elizabeth, like Mary, we know that it is fulfilled in Christ.
Knowing that God has done for us what he promised is a great way to prepare for Christmas. Knowing that “we have been sanctified through the body of Jesus Christ once for all” makes us confident and focused like these two great women of the Bible.
But there’s more to being ready for Christmas than just understanding God’s plan. There’s more to being sanctified than knowing the saving work of Jesus Christ. We want to accept the gift of holiness; we need to live the salvation Christ has brought us.
We do that in many ways, of course. When we serve others in charity, as Mary did for her pregnant cousin, we make a place in our hearts ready to welcome Christ. Already much kindness has been shown during Advent by members of our parish to those in need.
When we take time to reflect on what we believe, perhaps by reading ahead of time the readings for Mass on Christmas, the Word of God dwells in our hearts and prepares us to celebrate the mystery of the Word made flesh.
When we call upon the Lord’s name and say, “we will never turn back from you,” as the psalm says, we recommit ourselves to the mystery we are celebrating at Christmas.
But before we can say “we will never turn back from you,” some of us need to turn back to the Lord—to restore a relationship that has been weakened or even lost in the stormy months since last Christmas.
What’s the point of running around madly buying Christmas presents if we won’t accept the one God wants to give us: the gift of his mercy, the forgiveness of our sins?
Christ-who-comes wants every one of us to come to him at this sacred moment in the year. He invites us to meet him in the Sacrament of Penance this week, to go to confession before we welcome his coming at Christmas.
Our parish and the other North Shore parishes are doing our best to make this as easy as possible for busy people. Fr. Lucio and I will be in the confessionals right after the 11 o’clock Mass tomorrow. Tuesday evening at 7 pm, Deacon Marty will lead us in an Advent penitential service, after which at least seven priests will be hearing confessions.
On Wednesday before the morning Mass, Fr. Lucio and I will again be in our confessionals.
I was going to say that there’s no earthly reason not to get to confession before Christmas. But then I realized that the only reasons are earthly—worldly falsehoods like thinking we don’t deserve God’s mercy or that we don’t need God’s mercy.
Such worldly thinking misses the whole purpose of the Word of God taking flesh—so that Christ can save us. He wants to save us, and He will, if we let Him.
The Church offers us an antidote to the pre-Christmas panic shown in the video. There are simple paths to peace this week. We can spend some time thinking and praying about the big picture, God’s plan. We can find some opportunity for an act of kindness or charity.
And we can open our hearts to the gifts of joy and peace the Saviour offers us in the Sacrament of Penance.
No comments:
Post a Comment