Dear Parishioners,

Christians describe the season of Advent in a variety of ways. These descriptions usually include the notions of watching and waiting, preparing for the celebration of Christmas and making ourselves ready for the final return of Christ at the end of time. All of these are correct. I would like to suggest that another way to think of Advent is with a focus on the themes of absence and presence.

Advent immediately reminds us that there is an absence in our lives and in our world, otherwise why would be waiting. Something is missing. While most people would recognize this undeniable fact, many people may never take the time to articulate what those absences are. They may live life in such a way that never takes them to that deeper level of having to admit that we have not yet become perfect. Making such an admission inevitably invites us to not only identify what’s missing, but to also take the necessary steps to acquire that which is absent. This entails hard work and can cause one to feel overwhelmed at the immensity of it all.

Failing to acknowledge that our world is not perfect and that it is still lacking certain critical realities however, lessens the opportunities to make this present world more like the world that God envisions it to be. How can the world become better if we refuse to see what it lacks? The same can be said of our personal lives. The call to conversion that each Christian is meant to hear can only be heard when absence and brokenness are acknowledged. As we courageously labor to facilitate conversion, in whatever form it needs to take, we must still wait for the return of the Lord Jesus for he is the only one capable of completing this process of change that conforms us to the likeness of God.

But while we acknowledge absence, we must also acknowledge presence – the presence of Christ in our world. This is why the celebration of Christmas is so crucial for us – it confronts us with the comforting but scandalous belief that the immortal, invisible God became mortal and visible in Jesus. This is why we mean by the lofty theological term “incarnation.” God became
flesh and in doing so made this world his home forever even with all its warts and wrinkles. As imperfect as it is, God is still very comfortable among us, why else would a cave with an animal trough have become the very first tabernacle for this Sacrament of God’s divine presence.

And so while we help to make the future and wait for its culmination at the end of time, we also eagerly search in the present. We search in the present for the manifold ways that God is already among us as the title “Emmanuel” (“God with us”) connotes. The following words by St. John Henry Newman can inspire us in this search.

They watch for Christ
who are sensitive, eager, apprehensive in mind,
who are awake, alive, quick sighted…
who look for him in all that happens, and
who would not be surprised,
who would not be over-agitated or overwhelmed,
If they found that he was coming at once…
This then is to watch:
to be detached from what is present, and
to live in what is unseen…

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