As we enter the Advent season today, we could settle for the same as last year and accept that our lives will be pretty much unchanged by this season and every season of this new year.  But we’re a people of HOPEas we recalled in our introductory rites of this Masshope that will not disappoint.  But I would suggest that our hope be enflamed and our faithful waiting be active.  I suggest that each of us and our families enliven our waiting in Advent this year: rediscovering the blessings of our faith and the Church…there’s much in store for us who prepare well in Advent!

When I was growing up, I recall that the Advent season was filled with hustle & bustle: not shopping for Christmas gifts (we were a regular family with modest means).  No, our preparing in Advent centered around the traditions of my family:

• My mom and dad would stock our family’s Advent calendar with goodies: maybe small tokens or pieces of candy or some coins…little things that piqued our curiosities each morning when we would open the window or slide the hatch and discover the day’s trinkets.
• On the first Sunday of Advent, my dad and mom would bless our fresh wreath and candles before supper, and while lighting that candle on successive nights we would sing “O come, O come Emmanuel“…okay it wasn’t pretty but it had an impact on us kids: our waiting was active, looking for One who was to come.
• On December 6^th the feast of St. Nicholas we’d polish our shoes the night before (that was the one polish they got all, year!) and leave them outside our rooms before bed.  Waking in the morning, we’d find them filled with chocolate coins and candies.  As did any kid, we always looked forward to St. Nick’s feast.
• On the second Saturday of Advent, we would shop for a Christmas tree and decorate it, setting up our manger scenes throughout the house.  On Sunday, after Mass, we would say a prayer of hope and blessing upon the tree and mangers.
• On December 12^th the feast of St. Lucy we didn’t use electricity that evening, just tons of lit candles scattered throughout the house.  Since television wasn’t an option, we would hold a game night in the dining room.  We all got to choose a game we wanted the family to play and we would stay up late, enjoying the festivity of our little clan.
• On the third Sunday, we each would get our little baby Jesus figurines for our mangers and bring them to church for Fr. Starks to bless; of course, as soon as we got home we would hide them again until Christmas morning.
• And beginning on December 17^th, as we sat down for dinner and lit the advent wreath, we would sing the day’s “O antiphon“.  We could feel we were getting so close to Christmas!

These are the traditions of my childhood in Advent.  They were activities that each and every day helped me to grow in my hope and appreciation for the Savior who is to come at Christmas.  Every year it felt new, and alive, and excited.

May this year’s Advent season be filled with that kind of excitement for each of us; may it be a time for us to grow in faith-filled hopean active and excited hopethat the One who is coming will come to bring us the newness of His own divine life.

“Come, Lord Jesus!”

A blessed Advent!

As we celebrate the final weekend of our entire Church year, it stands as a kind of summation to all that we’ve encountered during these last 52 weeks in our liturgies.  In the endthis end of the yearwe are presented with the final meeting of Christ and Pontius Pilate.  The Roman Procurator stands face-to-face with the King of the Universe.  They are having a conversation: Pilate is agitated by the circumstances; Jesus is exhausted from the first twelve hours of his passion, but surely his eyes glow with the love and determination that had led him to this meeting.  For he came to dwell among usamong Pilatein order to save usto save Pilate’s soul.  And now providence has brought them together.

While Jesus is eager to draw this Roman patrician close to his heart; while all the conditions are right for Pilate to detect in Jesus the God for whom his own heart longs…he doesn’t.  He is in the same room with Jesusconcentrated & without interruptionspeaking with Jesus alone…yet, he remains unmoved, untouched.

Why?

“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  Here Jesus teaches us the secret to intimacy with God.  And isn’t this the great summation of the mission of the Church?  Isn’t this why we have come to believe and have worshiped together throughout this year?  And this is the secret: whoever lets himself be led by what is true will be drawn into communion with Christ and will hear and heed God’s ceaseless invitations to follow him more closely.

But being led by truth requires humility.  It requires recognizing a higher authority than oneself.  Here’s the surmountable challenge: if I am obliged to discover, accept, and conform to what is objectively true, thenin truthI am not autonomous, I am not the master of my universe, I am not God.  And such an act of humility is very difficult to make, because our fallen nature tends toward pride, towards self-sufficiency, control and dominance.  So, to resist such tendencies requires courage.  It takes courage to obey the truth and expose oneself to the burning love of Godbut that is what it is: love.

Our friendship with Christday in and day outis not easy; if it were, we would clearly not be pursuing friendship with Christ.  Christ’s own daily lifeespecially seen in today’s gospel, is furthest from easy.  By befriending Christ, Pilate would risk being dethroned and marked as an enemy of the Emperor; he would risk being ousted by the Jewish authorities, hauled back to Rome for his own execution. Look to the saints, the martyrs, the holy ones: ease is not a condition of following the Lord of the Universe: humility, courage and truth are the conditions that lead to a universal Kingdom of justice, love and peace: that same universal Kingdom for which Christ is the King.

So, may our Lord grant each of us abundant graces that we will need in this new year: to listen to Him, to accept Him, and to conform ourselves to Him as we seek to enter into His universal Kingdom.