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Advent: a time of preparation for the ‘Way of the Lord’The Advent season arrives as our annual wake-up call. Throughout these weeks, the Scriptures tell us to “awake and be vigilant.” We remember God coming among us in time – when the Word became flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary; we await in hope to welcome him at the end of time – when Christ will return in glory to judge us; and we ready our hearts to receive him in Word and Sacrament, for he still lives in our midst. While the secular society is already celebrating its “winter holidays,” the liturgy of Advent is sober – calling us to repentance and conversion. Indeed, the entire purpose of Advent is to reawaken our thirst for God. In last Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 13: 13-37), Jesus tells his disciples: “Be watchful! Be alert. ... You do not know when the time will come.” And so, Advent calls us to conversion – so that the Lord when he comes finds us “watchful.” That is, ready to receive him. Because of this “penitential” aspect of our Christmas preparations, we should all make a serious attempt during this particular time of grace to approach the confessional, lest when he comes he finds us ill-prepared to welcome him as Lord of our lives. Without acknowledging that we are not as self-sufficient, as autonomous as we sometimes pretend; without recognizing the false turns we have made, the sinful choices that turn us away from the destiny to which he calls us, God will be not only “missing” from our lives; he will not even be “missed.” How can we welcome the one who comes to save us, if we don’t acknowledge our need to be saved? Along with our pre-holiday shopping and partying, we should all make time to go to confession if only to remind ourselves that Jesus is, after all, the reason for the season. Most of our parishes have scheduled extra time for confessions; many have communal reconciliation services (with individual confession and absolution). By taking advantage of these opportunities for the Sacrament of Penance, we can, in the words of John the Baptist, “prepare the Way of the Lord.” Christmas means that Jesus still offers us gentle miracles of healing, of reconciliation, of interior peace and consolation, if only we approach him with trusting faith. Such trusting faith is perfectly modeled in the sinless Virgin Mary whose “yes” to God’s will allowed the Word to take flesh in her womb. She became the true “dwelling place” of the Lord, a true “temple” in the world and a “door” through which the Lord entered upon the earth. During the Advent season, we celebrate her Immaculate Conception, the unique privilege afforded her in view of her role in Salvation history. Advent reminds us that Christ wants to come to us – and, through us, he wants to come and live in our world. Between his first coming as man, when he was born of the Virgin Mary, and his final coming in glory at the end of time, he continues to come among us. He knocks at the door of our hearts asking us as he asked Mary through the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation: are you willing to give me your flesh, your time, your life? Mary, sinless from the first moment of her conception in the womb of St. Anne, responded with her generous “fiat” and the Word became flesh in her womb. We, of course, unlike Mary, are not without sin; but a good confession can bring Christ to birth once again in our lives – a good confession undoes the “noes” of our sins and reaffirms the “yes” of our baptism. It allows us to cry out in hope: Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
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