Advent is coming
I have been talking with the kids I teach about Advent these past few days. As a liturgical season, I think Advent is the second to least understood, behind Ordinary Time as the least understood of the seasons.
Advent is the start of a new Church Year. Advent is four weeks of preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas.
In order to get the kids to reflect on what this means, I asked if there were any who remembered the coming of a younger sibling into the family. I asked them what they had to do, and got answers like "cleaning", "take care of myself" and "live with my grandparents". One poor girl had to give up her room for the newborn. Anyway, there are sacrifices that have to be made, and they're often made in the final preparations for the child's coming.
Meditating on the sacrifices made by each family member is good to see what is going on, and the really important thing to recognize is that for each person sacrifices are being made. The mother, of her body, taxed by pregnancy. The father and children, in doing their regular tasks as well as those normally taken care of by the mother. Grandparents might take care of younger ones. Aunts and uncles, of various other things. Everyone sacrifices, and often, it is a sacrifice that draws people together (children to their grandparents, how ever teams are formed to fill mom's duties, and so on).
So, Advent is a time of preparation. The child we're preparing for is the Light of the World, God made Man, the child who is to redeem us all. So how do we make room for Him, how do we prepare for Him. We have to seek the supernatural nature of Advent, whose shadow is the natural experience described above. Where the family draws together to make a space for the child, the Church as a whole gathers and unites in the season of Advent to prepare herself for the birth of Her savior. Where the burden of the baby falls squarely on the shoulders of the mother, so too does the task of making Christ present fall squarely on the priests of the Church.
At the individual level, the challenge of Advent is to take the Inn of our hearts, and do our best to make space for Him. Indeed, our hearts are full of ourselves, and there are no rooms left. Just the same, the hope is that we're ready to accept Christ into the manure filled stable of the parts of our lives about which we are not proud.
Advent is a time of waiting and anticipation. Just as with a normal pregnancy, we have a good idea of when the child is going to come, but beautifully unknown is the time or place of the coming of the Child. What we have with the coming of the Child is the coming of the Light into the world. With the Son comes the Sun, The Light from The Light, True God from True God, the perfect gift of the Son from the Father. The gift already given, but not yet fully realized.
Advent is the start of a new Church Year. Advent is four weeks of preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas.
In order to get the kids to reflect on what this means, I asked if there were any who remembered the coming of a younger sibling into the family. I asked them what they had to do, and got answers like "cleaning", "take care of myself" and "live with my grandparents". One poor girl had to give up her room for the newborn. Anyway, there are sacrifices that have to be made, and they're often made in the final preparations for the child's coming.
Meditating on the sacrifices made by each family member is good to see what is going on, and the really important thing to recognize is that for each person sacrifices are being made. The mother, of her body, taxed by pregnancy. The father and children, in doing their regular tasks as well as those normally taken care of by the mother. Grandparents might take care of younger ones. Aunts and uncles, of various other things. Everyone sacrifices, and often, it is a sacrifice that draws people together (children to their grandparents, how ever teams are formed to fill mom's duties, and so on).
So, Advent is a time of preparation. The child we're preparing for is the Light of the World, God made Man, the child who is to redeem us all. So how do we make room for Him, how do we prepare for Him. We have to seek the supernatural nature of Advent, whose shadow is the natural experience described above. Where the family draws together to make a space for the child, the Church as a whole gathers and unites in the season of Advent to prepare herself for the birth of Her savior. Where the burden of the baby falls squarely on the shoulders of the mother, so too does the task of making Christ present fall squarely on the priests of the Church.
At the individual level, the challenge of Advent is to take the Inn of our hearts, and do our best to make space for Him. Indeed, our hearts are full of ourselves, and there are no rooms left. Just the same, the hope is that we're ready to accept Christ into the manure filled stable of the parts of our lives about which we are not proud.
Advent is a time of waiting and anticipation. Just as with a normal pregnancy, we have a good idea of when the child is going to come, but beautifully unknown is the time or place of the coming of the Child. What we have with the coming of the Child is the coming of the Light into the world. With the Son comes the Sun, The Light from The Light, True God from True God, the perfect gift of the Son from the Father. The gift already given, but not yet fully realized.