Praised be Jesus Christ…now and forever.
Two days ago, Father Athanasius, a few seminarians, a few students, and I completed our 5th Annual Penitential Pilgrimage for Sins Against the Holy Eucharist. We hiked 18 miles from Saint Louis Abbey to the Shrine of Saint Joseph, downtown. The first year we did it, I swore I’d never do it again. The second year, I figured I was in better shape than I was the first year. (I wasn’t). So the third year, I made arrangements to have someone pick me up half-way through (he didn’t). And the fourth year, I figured I had finally learned from my mistakes. (I hadn’t). This year wasn’t so bad. Maybe it was the cool weather. Maybe I had finally achieved that heroic victory over self. Or maybe it was the painkillers. But after eight hours of walking, I didn’t feel like I wanted to die…until the next morning, when I discovered that every muscle from just under my shoulder blades to just behind the pads of my toes was frozen stiff. Yesterday morning, I didn’t feel like the hero of the day before.I had to do this sort of Frankenstein maneuver just to sit up and get my feet on the ground. Then I spent the rest of the day walking like Charlie Chaplin. As usual, Father Athanasius had some chirpy advice about stretching or ice or something, but I ignored him, because I was in too much pain. Besides which, I had my own regimen of physical recovery which involved well…mostly…falling over and cursing. But it worked! Within 48 hours, I had progressed from what medical professionals call the Frankenstein stage to the Charlie Chaplin stage, to what I am calling the Mussolini stage, where you just do a sort of duck-step with your face screwed into a grimace…and now I think I’m able to move more or less like a normal undead human being.
All of this means, of course, that Thanksgiving is over and that the penitential season of Advent has begun. The Church has set off on a new liturgical year. On this first Sunday of Advent, we begin to count the days separating us from Christmas, and we are invited by Holy Mother Church to reflect on the reality of our Christian vocation and the many ways we’ve fallen short. Jesus, after all, has entrusted us with the mission of attracting other souls to holiness. So this is the time to root out any behavior that conceals or obscures that vision of holiness.
Our own soul has to be set in order before we can begin to attract others.
"Our greatest need,” wrote Fulton Sheen, “is for someone who will understand that there is no greater conquest than victory over self; someone who will realize that real worth is achieved not so much by activity, as by silence...who will, like a lightning flash, burn away the bonds of anxiety which tie down our energies to the world; who with a fearless voice, like John the Baptist, will arouse our weak nature out of the sleek dream of unheroic response; someone who will gain victories not by stepping down from the Cross and compromising with the world, but who will suffer in order to conquer the world.”
So you see, we don’t just look forward to Christmas—we NEED it. And we need it in three doses. Firstly, we are looking forward to the memorial of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem; secondly, we are looking forwars to the birth of christ in our souls. And lastly, we are looking forward to the coming of Christ at the end of time. We tend to think of the first much more than the second or third, and we do a good job of celebrating Jesus’ birthday; but the spiritual Bethlehem is just as important . . . It was this second birth of Christ in the soul that Saint Paul insisted on when he wrote to the Ephesians, begging them to let Christ dwell in their hearts by faith and that they be rooted and grounded in love. This is the second Bethlehem, or the personal relationship of the individual heart to the Lord Christ.”
Only then, having rejoiced in these two advents, can we look forward to the third, when Jesus will come in power and great glory at the end of time—when everyone will finally get what’s coming to them—when people will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
“The liturgy of Advent, therefore, helps us to understand the meaning of the mystery of Christmas,” wrote Saint John Paul II. “Because it is not just about commemorating a historical event. Instead, it is necessary to understand that the whole of our life must be an ‘advent,’ a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ. Advent is an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously” in our souls.
In the Name of the Father…
