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One
Advent, a CCD teacher showed her pre-schoolers a picture of two
roads. One road was rocky, full of dangerous potholes and curves.
The other road was straight, well-paved, and smooth. The CCD
teacher asked her students to evaluate each picture and to determine
which road would be better for taking a trip. Of course, the whole class
clamored that the smooth road was by far the superior road for
taking a trip. When the CCD teacher
asked her students “Why?” one little girl responded that a traveler would be too busy trying to stay on the rocky road. This little
girl also noted that a traveler wouldn’t be able to notice if God
had left some presents along the way, like the flowers she had seen
in the picture of the smooth road.
Last week, I spoke about the beautiful Jewish prayer and word
Christians use to describe the Season of Advent, Maranatha.
Translated as “Come, Lord Jesus,” Maranatha connotes to many
of us an invitation, just like those invitations we receive to
“Holiday Parties” (they can’t be called “Christmas Parties” any
more), as if we’re inviting the Lord to come from on high to enjoy
some adult beverages and hors d’oeuvres with us. In reality,
Maranatha is an anguished cry from the depths of the heart—a
demand, if you will, of God—“Come Lord!” The plea is that the Lord
break into my heart and straighten out all of dangerous potholes
that have slowed me down and all of the detours I have taken. Perhaps more pointedly, praying
Maranatha is to demand that the Lord expose to me the truth of my
life because I’ve chosen to take that rocky road with its all of its
dangerous potholes and curves.
This week, I want to talk once again about that beautiful Jewish
prayer. But, rather than focusing upon crying out Maranatha
from the depths of our hearts and demanding that God break into our
lives and save us—as I did last week—I want to focus today upon
recognizing how God actually does break into our lives so that we
can see ourselves for who we truly are, the dangerous potholes that have slowed us down
and the detours we’ve taken, as well as the grave
danger now facing us. Armed with this awareness, we live in
hope that God will save us. Then, when
God once again does save us, we will see the presents God
leaves for us along the way that is straight, well-paved, and
smooth.
To
get at this matter, consider those times when you’re driving home
from work, heading home from school, or returning home after running
all over town trying to get all of your errands completed. Did
you ever catch yourself musing about what it would be like—the bliss
of Eden that would be yours—if, upon your arriving home, everything
was absolutely perfect? You know: there is no “To Do” list
awaiting you “To Do”; everything is in perfect order because
everyone has chipped in by completing their chores (talk about
Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”!); nobody making any
demands or complaining about anything; a place where you just sit
back, relax, and regale in the moment—soaking it all in and savoring
every delectable second of it—without a care or worry about what the
future will bring?
That vision of bliss—the very same vision of freedom so dear to the
hearts of the Jews during the Babylonian Captivity and reported in
today’s first reading—breaks into our lives every once and a while.
And, if we were to grasp that vision with our minds, reflect on it,
and work with it just a little bit, we would see how God breaks into
our lives and actually responds to our Advent Maranatha to
save us.
How
is that so?
Spurring that vision of bliss—the heartfelt desire for a happy and
peaceful existence—is quite a bit of worry that we ought really to
appraise. The simple fact is that we worry about so many things.
We fret over making sure that we’ve completed all of our chores and
met all of our obligations. With so much to do and so little time
to do it all, we may even feel guilty for not having accomplished
what we could—and should—do, namely, prepare for the Lord to break into our
lives.
Doesn’t that pretty much describe how we spend the Season of Advent
each year? We have a vision about what we’d like to experience on
Christmas Day. But, to get there, we find ourselves worrying about
getting the Christmas decorations up; writing, addressing, and
sending the Christmas cards; purchasing and, then, wrapping all of
the gifts and stocking stuffers; juggling a calendar of countless
“holiday” gatherings (that’s because they can’t be called “Christmas
gatherings” anymore); and that’s to say nothing about the myriad of
other things on the “To Do” list. We trod our way toward Christmas
taking the rocky road that’s full of dangerous potholes and curves,
spending a tremendous amount of time and energy working so hard to
make sure that we don’t fall and injure ourselves. But, all along
this road, we fail to see “the salvation of our God”—Emmanuel, “God
is with us”—because we’re not following the straight and well-paved
road and noticing God’s presence along the way.
All
of those worries that seem to get in the way of experiencing bliss
are, in reality, moments when God is desperately trying to break
into our lives and catch our notice. It’s right there—smack dab in the middle of all the
rush, stress, guilt, and feelings of incompleteness that make us
“feel like Hell”—where God is to be found. Unfortunately, we’re
blind to God because we’re focusing upon everything else—all of
those dangerous potholes and curves—not God and His presence!
It
is this spiritual and moral wasteland—the desert we’ve made of our
lives—that God is trying to break into, not in the sense of God
saying, “Hi. I’m God. I just happened to come by today for a
visit. May I come in for a holiday drink and some hors d’oeuvres?”
No, it’s in the middle of all of this frenetic and frenzied
activity—everything that leads to worry, anxiety, and guilt—where
God is working so hard to break into our lives and to capture our
attention. If we’d just stop for a minute and “lift up our
hearts,” we’d see first-hand how we’ve blinded ourselves to God and
His presence by
our own freely-willed choices.
God
is trying to break into our lives whether we’re on the way home from
work, returning home from school, or rushing home after completing
all of the errands. It doesn’t matter when or where. God wants to
smooth out those dangerous potholes and straighten out those detours
we’ve taken. In short, God is present and wants to save us.
And
so, as we continue this season of preparing for the Lord to break
into our lives—Maranatha—my prayer for you is the prayer of St. Paul we heard in today’s
epistle. It’s a prayer I hope spouses have for one another as you
prepare for Christmas, the prayer that parents have for their
children as all of you prepare for Christmas, the prayer that children have
for their parents as you prepare for Christmas, and the prayer all of us
should pray for one another as we individually and collectively prepare for Christmas. As St.
Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “This is my prayer: that your love may
increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of
perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and
blameless on the day of Christ.”
Our
religion is not founded upon myths or any feeble efforts to
transcend this earthly existence and to catch a glimpse of the
divine. In its deepest essence, our religion is an historical
religion, one rooted in the Incarnation of God in His very person,
Who breaks into history to save His people. Nowhere is this more
especially true than God’s efforts to break into the history of the dangerous potholes and detours
we’ve taken. Because of this historical reality, Advent is not
really the season where we prepare to celebrate something that has
already happened, as important as that may be. More importantly,
Advent is the season where we prepare ourselves for something yet to come. We do that by demanding of God—“Maranatha,”
we say—that is, “Lord, break into my life so that through greater
love and increased knowledge and perception, I will be able to
discern what St. Paul says is ‘of value.’ ”
Then, as each of us recognizes the dangerous potholes and detours
and allow God to make straight the pathway of our lives—remember,
it’s God’s road to us not our road to God—we will see the
salvation God has already offered and continues to offer us in the
Incarnation of His only begotten Son on Christmas Day.
A very brief commercial
break...
As
Catholics, we prepare for Christ's coming by celebrating the season
of Advent. During the coming four weeks, we prepare the way
for Christ to come into our own lives each and every day not just on
Christmas day. For Catholic families, let me suggest five
practical ways to prepare for Christ's coming:
1. Place
an advent wreath in the center of your dinner table. Each
evening before sitting down for dinner, have one member offer a
prayer of thanksgiving to God for His presence in the life of your
family and light the appropriate candle(s).
2. Use
an Advent calendar.
Hang an
advent calendar on the refrigerator door beginning on December 1st.
Each morning, before everyone scatters for the day, have one member
of the family open one door and read the scripture verse or describe
the biblical scene behind the door. This is a great way for
family members to keep focused on the coming of Christ for the rest
of the day.
3. Make
a Jesse tree. The Jesse tree is the traditional way that
Catholics recall Jesus' heritage, coming from the line of King
David, the son of Jesse. Have members of the family make a
symbol for each day of Advent that marks an important moment in
Israel's history (e.g., Noah's ark, Jacob's ladder, Moses' stone
tablets, David's harp). Then, each evening before everyone
goes to bed, gather the family around the Jesse tree, have the
family member explain the symbol, and hang it on the tree.
4.
Celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 6th. One
way to "put Christ back into Christmas" is to reclaim the
faith-filled life of heroic virtue revealed in the great Christian
saint, St. Nicholas of Myra. Besides sharing simple gifts with
family members, like placing candy in shoes that have been left
outside of the bedroom door, share some time with people who are
alone, in the hospital, convalescing, etc.
5.
Celebrate God's mercy. Advent is a particularly fitting
time for every member of the family to welcome the light of God's
forgiveness into the dark places of family life. Gather the
family together and go to church to celebrate the Sacrament of
Penance together. Then, go out for pizza to celebrate God's
mercy and a new beginning free from sin.
By
participating in these five practical activities to prepare for Christmas
day, Catholic families will not only have contemplated their need
for God and God's self-revelation through salvation history.
In addition, they will have experienced God present and active in
their family's life. Then, on Christmas day, when family
members greet one another by saying, "Merry Christmas," they all will
truly be prepared to celebrate the Mass wherein Christ will
strengthen and nourish them with his body and blood to bring Christ
to the world.
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HOMILY
