ADVENT is about waiting – not the anxious waiting at the hospital bedside, the irritated and impatient waiting in the checkout queue, nor the essentially depressed waiting for better weather, better news, for the phone to ring, for light at the end of the tunnel.
Waiting is what we could probably describe as counter-cultural nowadays, surrounded as we are by the ‘must-have’ society. Christmas has been advertised (in the form of ‘Book your Christmas event at this restaurant’) since early August. More recently I have been appalled by advertisements for Advent calendars promising a little bottle of alcohol on each of the days leading up to Christmas. I have nothing against a glass of wine, but I am really sad that so many people are totally unaware of the real meaning of Christmas. However much we avert our eyes from the pressures to buy yet another sofa in time for Christmas, we cannot avoid knowing that instant gratification of consumer desires is the prevailing atmosphere. As we are not saints either, we can probably not pretend that some of it doesn’t rub off on us.
I am old enough to remember a much more low-key celebration of both Advent and Christmas in my childhood. Nowadays I deliberately choose to try to celebrate Advent in a spirit of expectation, hope, increasing joy. I have an Advent wreath, for instance – usually with the appropriate liturgical purple and pink candles, although the original Germanic tradition is for red alone. The tree – always a real one (with real candles) – waits in the garage until Gaudete Sunday at the earliest, and even then I don’t add all the decorations until almost Christmas Eve. Friends of mine have their tree in the house, but decorate it during Advent simply with purple ribbons.
More important than this, though, is the preparation of the heart. Am I listening with the ear of my heart? How hospitable is my heart? What kind of a welcome is there in my heart for Christ’s coming? What changes, maybe quite small ones, can I make each day in Advent this year that will mean I am more open to the Word of God? Am I allowing myself to prepare my heart to become capable of receiving Christ? Can I let him in to make his home in me – as he wants to? (John 13:23)
The challenge is firstly to be quiet amidst the noise of this world, to find space to be silent, to be attentive to what God may want to say to me now, this Advent, this Christmas. I find myself in a different place this Advent than I was last year. Circumstances have changed, things have happened in the last 12 months both to me and to those whose lives touch mine – blessings and sorrows; bad news and good; loved ones have been ill, or died, babies have been born.
In the secular world magazines are full of advice on de-cluttering your life and home. Advent could be a time for pausing before the end of this year and de-cluttering my heart. Maybe there are wounds needing forgiveness, stresses and anxieties which I need to hand over to the Lord, regrets and failures from which I need to move on, attitudes I need to bin. I may perhaps ask myself what has happened to Lectio …or the Office ….or personal prayer ….. or reading the Gospels … or going to daily Mass… or making a genuine effort to love absolutely everyone I encounter….or giving generously of my time, my concern, my patience . It is, of course, the beginning of the Church’s year, a time of growing hope and trust in the certainty of the joy to come. What rituals can I create in my home, in my life, which will enable me to experience Advent this year with real trust, real hope that the Lord will come to me, that he will indeed smooth and straighten the rough paths of my wandering heart, that he will lift me
out of the depths of whatever has been draining me of life, that the wasteland of my heart will, as Isaiah so beautifully prophesies:
“..rejoice and bloom, let it bring forth flowers like the jonquil, let it rejoice and sing for joy.” (Isaiah 35:1)
The older translation of the Collects for daily Mass often sum Advent up beautifully:
“Help us to prepare for the Coming of Christ your Son. May he find us waiting, eager in joyful prayer” (Advent 1, Monday)
“Give us the joy of your love to prepare the way for Christ our Lord. Help us to serve you and one another.” (Advent 2, Thursday)
May all of us allow God to renew his life within us this Advent.
Mary Cockroft,
Oblate of Stanbrook Abbey
