By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
“Come, let us climb the
LORD’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” Isaiah 2:3b
that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” Isaiah 2:3b
You know the time; it is
the hour now for you to awake from sleep.
For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night
is advanced, the day is at hand. Romans
13:11-12a
Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord
will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour
of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his
house be broken into. Matthew 24:42-43
Piety
Waiting is part of our
piety. We are awaiting the coming of Christ. It is the second coming we honor
when he will come to take us to his eternal joy in us. Piety is the fullness of
our relationship to Christ. It unfolds in all the things we do to honor him in
our lives as we get ready for his coming. We celebrate his birth in such a
special way that we can get lost in all the gifts we give. But we are honoring
his coming into our lives as our Savior. He comes as the child that we all once
were to let us knows where our relationship to him begins. He comes in such an
unassuming way that we are not afraid of him. We prepare for his coming by
showing the gratitude of love to all the people in our lives that are special
to us. We give as a response to God giving His to us. How can we love the God
we do not see if we do not love the neighbors we do see? Every gift at Christmas time opens us to the
gift that God is to us in his son Jesus.
Study
Our prayer and the reading
of Scripture give us a profound awareness for whom we are waiting. His coming
makes a difference in our world despite how secular our world is becoming. How
focused we are on the coming gives Advent its deepest meaning. Christ is the
truth of who we are meant to be. We study his life that by our exposure to him
we can find out who we are meant to be. We are created in the image and
likeness of God in Christ. Christ is so much more than our ticket to heaven. We
study who he becomes in his humanness to realize who we should become as
children of God.
Action
A good Advent takes
planning. A morning of prayer can whet our appetite for Christmas. The meaning
of our lives takes its form through how we share Christ with each other. We are
motivated by seeing the expectation of the Hebrew people for the coming of the
Messiah. At the Church of St. Aloysius in Washington D.C. on Dec. 8th
there will be a morning of prayer with Mass that will be hopefully a good start
for building up the spirit of Christmas in our hearts. Contemplative prayer is
the language of love for God. There will
be three examples of Contemplative prayer to model the experience of that type
of prayer. The experience is better than words to describe it. The Morning of
prayer will start at 9 and will finish around 12. All are invited to be part of
the celebration of the Immaculate Conception as a preparation for the Birth of
Christ. In a world that has gone too secular, it is good to have a chance to
put Christ back into Christmas. Mary is
a wonderful teacher of how to welcome the coming of Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment