The month of
December always seems excessively filled with
activities. Most of us are over-occupied with
various customs associated with Christmas, family
customs, school customs, and the customary office
parties. So the observances of the Church during
Advent, the first season of the Christian Year, can
seem out of sequence. While others are celebrating,
the Church calls us to be waiting and watching.
While others are completing holiday festivities, we
are supposed to be preparing for those that are to
come.
From time to time,
I hear a complaint that the Church is “out of
step.” But still, I hold on to the spiritual
reality that we need the season of Advent to remind
us of the Truth that something lies ahead, that
there is a promised future for which we need to wait
and watch. There is an important event coming for
which we need to prepare. It is the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Sometimes we can
get so wrapped up in the secular packaging of
Christmas that we think of it only as a cultural
holiday, a season of gift-giving and social
gatherings. But for us who rejoice with “the herald
angels,” to sing “glory” at the festival of Christ’s
birth, the mystery is much more profound. We
celebrate the coming of Jesus, born of the Blessed
Virgin, because “God with us,” Emmanuel, comes that
we might be with God.
This hope of life
with God informs our walk in faith. It also awakens
in us the spiritual longing for our Lord to come
again. Our Lord comes; and at his appearing, he
brings the fulfillment of everlasting life with him
whose “kingdom will have no end.”
“O come, O come
Emmanuel.”
Yours in Christ's love,
, SSC