A time for preparation
Inmany of the Christian faith traditions including Catholicism, today we begin Advent, the beginning of another church year. And each year on this Sunday we are invited to look long-range, look down the road, look at the big picture. We are asked to start the church year by sort of considering the entirety of our lives, the entirety of our personal histories, the entirety of our faith journeys.
And scripture does that through the apocalyptic words of Jesus, dramatic images that put before us a time when Jesus will return in power and great glory. These words and images can be quite startling, can be puzzling, can be frightening in a certain sense. Not one of us can really know what that day will be like, or what we will experience, or whether it will take place in our lifetimes or long after we are gone. And we’re not supposed to know.
But what we are to know is how the story turns out, the ending if you will. The hope and promise and eternal destination of each of our individual stories. God has a plan for his creation, and each of us gets to share in that plan, gets to participate in its unfolding, gets to travel down a path to a home prepared for us.
And there is deep comfort in that, comfort in knowing and believing and trusting in a God who loves us beyond our wildest dreams. And while there certainly will be surprises along the way, certainly be things we couldn’t have predicted, even be things we never would have chosen; we need not worry about how it will all turn out, need not worry whether we have gotten enough right for God to love us.
He already does — deeply, relentlessly. No matter what.
It is that same God we patiently await this Advent, that same God who didn’t only come two thousand years ago, but also promises to come to us once again, promises to break into our hearts and minds and lives in ways we can’t even imagine. But like most things in the spiritual life, the difference God wants to make in each of our lives will not happen by accident. We need to be expecting him. We need to be longing for him. We need to be waiting for him to make the difference he longs to make, need to be alert and attentive to the God who comes to us on his terms, not ours. That’s why we need this season, to remind us of the incredible God we have, and the incredible things he was and is willing to do for us
And so we once again start this holy season with our eyes fixed on two places: on a manger in a small town long ago, and on the eternal home awaiting each of us, on the beginning of an incredible story and on the end, on the surprises life delivers and on the destination fixed in our minds and hopes and dreams.
Jesus is coming. Of that we can be sure.
With that in mind, may we use this holy season to truly prepare — to open our hearts to our God who wants nothing more than come to us, dwell within us, and change us forever. Best wishes for a Blessed Advent Season.
Deacon Stuart Neslin is the parish administrator at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.