Today we begin a new season in the liturgical year – Advent. It’s actually the beginning of a new year in the liturgical calendar, so Happy New Year! In the past I’ve written about some of the beautiful Advent traditions of the Catholic Church (check them out by typing “advent” in the “categories” section and my previous posts should come up). I’ve written about ways to prepare for Christmas – Jesus’ first coming. Today I’d like to focus on ways to prepare for Jesus’ second coming.
Just two days ago the Catholic Church celebrated the Feast of St. Andrew, one of Jesus’ first disciples. I sat and read the Gospel for the day (Matthew 4:18-22 and decided to do a lectio divina. At first glance I thought, there’s not much to chew on here – Jesus says to Peter, Andrew, James and John, “come follow me.” He says the same to us. Done, right? NOT! I wasn’t giving up without a fight, I knew there was more to glean, so I kept at it. Sure enough the Holy Spirit provided, as it usually does. I asked myself, what did it take for these 4 men to give up everything they knew, all of their comforts, to follow Jesus at the drop of a net? It took faith, sacrifice and trust.
Faith
Peter, Andrew, James and John had not only heard of Jesus, they personally witnessed His power. Shortly thereafter they were called and followed. They must have believed that Jesus was “the Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God said “listen to Him” and they DID. They possessed the faith they needed to make the Trinity a priority in their lives.
Sacrifice
Talk about sacrifice! I would find it very difficult to walk away from my family – no questions asked. Could I “drop my net” and leave my loved ones in the middle of the sea without asking questions? Probably not. I would need answers. Even when I got answers, I’m not so sure they’d be enough to leave it all behind.
Trust
How obvious the trust these men had in the Lord! They heard His voice, they listened and they followed. They knew nothing about what to expect, they knew nothing about where they were going and they knew nothing about when or even if they would return to their normal lives. What they DID know was that this man they called Jesus was worth following and that He would not steer them wrong!
Advent
This Advent I would like to take a different approach to the season. Actually, I’d like to add my own tradition to the beautiful traditions of the Church. I’m still going to patiently wait to decorate for Christmas. I’m still going to focus on the reason for the season. I’ll pray with my Advent wreath and Jesse Tree. However, I will also take stock of how much faith and trust I have in the Lord and how much I sacrifice to follow Him.
Advent is one of my favorite seasons. I absolutely love preparing for the coming of Jesus. I literally feel like I’m sprucing up my house for a special guest to arrive on Christmas day and in a way, I am. However, reading Matthew’s Gospel made me think of something else. As Christians we believe that Jesus will come again, right? So how am I preparing my “house” for His second coming? How am I preparing my soul for Jesus to take residence there? In keeping with the theme of faith, sacrifice and trust, here’s what I’m thinking.
Practicing DEEP faith
This week, in his homily on the Feast of St. Andrew, the deacon talked about some powerful words the Bishop uses during ordinations. While holding the book of the Gospels together with the priest or deacon to be ordained the Bishop says “believe what you read, teach what you believe, practice what you teach.” Isn’t that what deep faith is all about?
This Advent maybe we can think about whether we TRULY believe what we read in the Gospels. Do we read them enough? Do we teach what we believe? Teaching what we believe looks different for everyone, but how are we teaching what we believe? Is it even important to us to teach what we believe? More importantly, is there integrity in our teaching? In other words, are we practicing what we’re teaching?
Being counter-cultural
In today’s world and especially during the season of Advent (which the world mistakenly believes to be the Christmas season) – sacrifice is not on anyone’s mind – in fact, overindulgence is. So how can we sacrifice for Christ this season? We wait more, we spend less in order to teach what we believe – that the reason for the season is Christ, not gift exchange. How can we sacrifice the rest of the year? By stepping out of our comfort zone and doing more for Christ even when it’s inconvenient, even when we have our sights on something else.
Surrender all
This is a tough one. Trust goes hand in hand with surrender. How difficult that is for us humans, especially if we’ve been “graced” with the need to control. These past few months I have been actively focusing on trusting the Lord with my life. I believe it has everything to do with the book I just finished reading entitled Forty Weeks (I know I keep mentioning it but it has changed my life).
So for me, in order to focus on trusting more, I have to make a conscious effort to invite the Holy Spirit into my daily life. I have to invite the Holy Spirit into my prayer, into my thoughts and into my decision making. This is not easy, but it CAN be done. We just have to be aware, awake and conscious of the present. We cannot let ourselves be distracted with worry, anxiety or thoughts of the past or the future.
I was thinking the other day about the things that I write and the advice that I give to friends and family when they’re going through tough times. I realized that what I offer may not always be well received because sometimes things don’t turn out the way we expect or the way we want. Then come the questions. I kept thinking, how can I help people understand the importance of trust in God and do I really practice it myself? Well, of course, when I opened my bible that day, it led me to the book of Job. Job 38:1-41 to be exact.
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