Dear Friends,
This Season of Advent invites each of us into a time of thoughtfulness as we prepare to celebrate the ‘sudden coming of the Son of Man.’ Through his birth at Christmas, Jesus enters into the intimate and ordinary events of our lives and we are invited to a deeper mindfulness as we seek to understand the meaning of our experience, conscious that it takes, in the words of writer Andre Dubus, ‘only a very small jolt, at the right time, to knock us off balance for the rest of our lives.’
Our lives are usually defined by the calendar year and these final weeks are often intensely busy as businesses and schools wind up and families plan holidays and reunions before another year begins. Advent offers us a ‘prophetic word’ in our lives that will hopefully prompt us to pause a little more often as the surprise of Jesus’ birth heralds an even more intimate presence of the divine in our daily lives.
The familiar Advent message to ‘stay awake’ invites us to live humanly to the best of our ability, continuing to do the necessary mundane things but always with a genuine care for the other – the neighbour in need. Call it the Sacrament of the Neighbour if you will. Just as Jesus is the Sacrament of our Encounter with God, so must we be ‘sacraments’ for each other. Our understanding of the later teaching of Jesus illuminates the meaning of this Advent experience.
Pope Francis counsels us against a purely horizontal existence where we so readily miss the deeper meaning of our life and existence and forget to notice God, a fear that St Augustine too was very aware of – ‘I fear that Jesus will pass by me unnoticed.’ Advent is both a time of ‘God's closeness and our watchfulness’.
A simple way to retain some focus during Advent is to pray the traditional Advent prayer: 'Come, Lord Jesus.' This simple mantra connects us with Jesus no matter where we are or what we are doing – working, studying, traveling, shopping, walking, relaxing. Prayer allows God to be close to us and this comforting greeting evokes a response from the Lord himself as he draws us into a conversation that deepens our appreciation of our identity as Christians.
Loving God is our daily task that requires engagement on our part so that our lives do not become mediocre. Faith is the opposite of mediocrity as we nurture our desire for God and our courage to love. Desire, as we know, is the heart of our spiritual life – both our desire for God and God’s desire for us.
Such is the ‘search’ of which St Augustine speaks, the inner restlessness which we all experience, our need to recognise in God the true searcher. Irish Scripture scholar Kieran O’Mahony OSA describes how Lent invites us to conversion, Easter promotes joy in believing, and Advent encourages us and takes us back to our original longing which brought us to God in the first place.
Our faith journey is reflected in the progressive lighting of the 4 candles on the Advent wreath which gradually weaves the thread of light that helps us prepare for the splash of brilliant light that bathes us in our celebration of Christ at Christmas.
Welcome to Advent, Season of enlightenment and surprise! Fr Dave