By Deacon Richard Hay
“The Reality of Advent Preparation”
I am going to let you in on a little church secret.
Many times, during Advent, we talked about preparing for the arrival of Jesus – to remember both His first coming as a baby in Bethlehem on that first Christmas but also to prepare for His second coming at the end of time.
During this season of Advent, we have been encouraged to spend time preparing in prayer and reflection. The goal is to not rush towards Christmas and skip right over these four weeks of Advent – but patiently journey through this season because the four Sundays of Advent are each unique and give us a special focus.
However, as I walked into the church last Thursday morning and saw our own preparations for Christmas starting to appear, as you also now see all around us, the reality sets in that as much as we would like to purely focus on preparing our hearts and souls for Christmas during Advent, there is the need of some actual preparation – physically getting out the decorations plus putting up the tree, hanging the lights, stockings, setting up the nativity, and yes, even putting out the 20 foot inflatable Santa Claus – it is all part of the season. That type of preparation must also happen, even here inside of our own church, otherwise the calendar just doesn’t give us enough time as we shift between the seasons of Advent and Christmas.
So, the secret is that what we must do and hopefully have done over these last four weeks is to have at least put aside part of the time on our calendar to focus on preparing our hearts and minds to receive Christ because this is important in our spiritual lives.
Then, with what time is left over, we can do the other things that are necessary to prepare for Christmas. This is just our reality, but it should not come at the expense of our spiritual preparation.
So, over these first three weeks of Advent, each Sunday has been tied to a theme to help us in these preparations. In addition, Father Marek’s homilies have given us some beautiful insight into where and how to focus each week.
That first Sunday of Advent was about hope. Father Marek reminded us that preparing for Advent is like the fire drills that we used to have in school. We need to develop strong habits in our faith life so that we are prepared for both Jesus’s first coming at Christmas and His second coming. Are we truly prepared for that to happen? Do we need to work on new or existing practices in our faith life to improve in those areas so we are ready?
On the second Sunday of Advent, we focused on peace. In Father’s homily, he asked us how well are we preparing for eternity. Are our hearts at peace with that preparation or do we feel unsettled about it? One needs to be maintained – our peacefulness – and if we feel unsettled, then there is still work to be done.
Then last week, on the third Sunday of Advent when we celebrated the joy we should all feel about Christ’s coming, Father told us that wonderful story of the monastery and monks. We learned that when we see the possibility of the Messiah in others, it can only lead to great joy and growth. Do we take the time to see Jesus in others or do we just skip that completely?
Now, today, we arrive at this fourth and final Sunday of Advent. This entire season of journeying towards Christmas and the themes of Hope, Peace, and Joy are brought together under the auspices of love.
This is of course no accident because God is all about love – the purest form of love – and absolutely everything that is in Him is of love.
As Jesus himself told us when he was asked what the greatest commandment was, he said:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ And then he added “the second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Our readings today emphasize this love of God beginning with the first reading from Micah. This is full of messianic prophecies, and I won’t list out all ten, but Jesus’s coming fulfills all of them and He was sent by the Father out of love for each one of us. That is why He sent His son to become man – to become incarnate – at that first Christmas – all out of love for us.
God’s rule is not one of power but of love and love is the point of these prophecies being fulfilled. Love is the gift of self in all our relationships – with God, our spouses, families, friends, co-workers and even the strangers we encounter in our lives each day.
The second reading shows that it was out of love that we have been consecrated through the offering of Christ’s body once for all – for all our sins.
Then, in our gospel, some powerful stuff is happening in the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth.
First, Elizabeth recognizes Jesus in Mary’s womb when she says, “and how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” When she professes Jesus as Lord in that moment – this could be considered the first Christian proclaiming Christ as our Savior.
Elizabeth is made aware of this through the Holy Spirit in this beautiful encounter with Mary. The Holy Spirit reveals to Elizabeth that Mary is carrying Jesus, that is how she knew it was our Lord. Even John, growing in Elizabeth’s womb, encounters Mary as the Mother of God and Jesus’s presence when Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting and she tells Mary afterwards that the infant in her womb “leaped” for joy in that moment.
This of course, connects us back to the homily last week about the monks and looking for the Messiah’s presence in others. This is something we should always be looking for – Jesus – in everyone we encounter because it will change how we treat people when that is our first thought. It will in fact cause us to “leap for joy” and create massive changes and revival in our world just like it did for the monk’s and the monastery.
There is still time in this season of Advent over these next couple of days before Christmas to collect ourselves, reflect on what we have been able to do to prepare for the coming of the Lord, and ask ourselves these questions:
• Are we truly prepared for Christ’s coming?
• Are our hearts truly ready for eternity?
• Are we always truly making the effort to see the Messiah – to see Jesus in others?
• And, are we always truly loving of our God and others?
If any of those answers are no, don’t worry, even though Advent is nearly complete, all of this can still be worked on but don’t delay because the day and time of His second coming is known only to the Father in heaven.
When that happens, then the time for preparation is over – we must be ready to meet our Lord whenever that day and time comes – we must always be prepared.
So, let’s all take some time before Christmas to truly open our hearts for the coming of Jesus and keep our hearts always open to Him so we may be ready to make Him the light in our hearts and our lives.
