Pastor’s Prayer Journal

We launch this Sunday into the new liturgical season of Advent, probably one of my favorite times of year in the Church’s calendar. The title comes from the Latin word, adventus, which means “the arrival.” The arrival of whom, we must ask ourselves? It’s none other than Jesus Christ. For us Christians, his birth is more than just a day on December 25th. It requires spiritual preparation, prayerful reflection, and a renewed sense of repentance. The color purple that you will see in the vestments of the priest and the décor of the church, is meant to lift our minds from the commercial driven craze that has become synonymous with Christmas (analysts project that Americans will spend over a trillion dollars this season) to the higher world. Or we can even say more radically, we must prepare ourselves for the higher world to break into our own. Advent is the time we examine ourselves to see how we can welcome God back into our lives in a renewed and intensified way.

God will come as a helpless child, born of the Virgin Mary in the most humbling of circumstances. Imagine how the creator of the universe, whom we heard about in last Sunday’s second reading from St. Paul is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible..." (See Colossians 1:15-16) This powerful and almighty God will arrive as weak and pitiful. Do not allow this Christian mystery to pass you by. Stay with it; let this teaching penetrate your weary bones. Why does God do this? The reason is utterly simple: HE LOVE US:

“Even in the natural order, all genuine love is a victory of weakness. Loving is not dominating or possessing, imposing one self on the person loved. Loving means that one welcomes the other person without putting up any defenses. In return, one is certain of being welcomed totally by that person, without being judged, condemned, or compared. There are no more trials of strength between two people who love each other. There is a sort of mutual inner intelligence thanks to which one can no longer fear any danger coming from the other person. This experience, even if it always remains imperfect is already convincing, yet it is only a reflection of the divine reality. From the moment we begin to believe truly in our hearts in God the father’s infinite tenderness, we feel in someway compelled to descend further and further into a positive, joyful acceptance of not having, not knowing, and not being able. This does not entail any unhealthy self-humiliation, we are simply entering into the world of love and trust.” –From an unknown Carthusian monk.