As we begin Advent, we light one candle in the midst of all the darkness in our lives and in the world.It symbolizes our longing, our desire, our hope.
Three “advents” or “comings” shape our desire. We want to be renewed in a sense that Jesus came to save us from our sin and death. We want to experience his coming to us now, in our everyday lives, to help us live our lives with meaning and purpose. And we want to prepare for his coming to meet us at the end of our lives on this earth.
So, we begin with our longing, our desire and our hope.
When we wake up, each day this week, we could light that candle, just by taking a few moments to focus. We could pause for a minute at the side of our bed, or while putting on our slippers or our robe, and light an inner candle. Who among us doesn't have time to pause for a moment? We could each find our own way to pray something like this:
“Lord, the light I choose to let into my life today is based on my trust in you. It is a weak flame, but I so much desire that it dispel a bit more darkness today. Today, I just want to taste the longing I have for you as I go to the meeting this morning, carry out the responsibilities of my work, face the frustration of some difficult relationships. Let this candle be my reminder today of my hope in your coming.”
Each morning this week, that momentary prayer might get more specific, as it prepares us for the day we will face. And as we head to work, walk to a meeting, rush through lunch, take care of errands, meet with people, pick up the phone to return some calls, answer e-mail, return home to prepare a meal, listen to the ups and downs of our loved ones' day, we can take brief moments to relate our desire for the three comings of the Lord to our life.
If our family has an Advent wreath, or even if it doesn't, we could pray together before our evening meal. As we light the first candle on the wreath, or as we simply pause to pray together our normal grace. Then, as we begin to eat, we can invite each other, including the children, to say something about what it means today to light this first candle.
Perhaps we could ask a different question each night, or ask about examples from the day. How am I getting in touch with the longing within me? How did I prepare today? What does it mean to prepare to celebrate his coming 2,000 years ago? How can we prepare to experience his coming into our lives this year? What does it mean for us now, with our world involved in so much conflict? How are we being invited to trust more deeply? How much more do we long for his coming to us, in the midst of the darkness in our world? In what ways can we renew our lives so we might be prepared to greet him when he comes again? Our evening meal could be transformed this week, if we could shape some kind of conversation together that lights a candle of anticipation in our lives. Don't worry if everyone isn't “good at” this kind of conversation at first. We can model it, based on our momentary pauses throughout each day, in which we are discovering deeper and deeper desires, in the midst of our everyday lives.
And every night this week, we can pause briefly, perhaps as we undress or sit for a minute at the edge of the bed. We can be aware of how that one, small candle's worth of desire brought light into this day. And we can give thanks. Going to bed each night this week with some gratitude is part of the preparation for growing anticipation and desire.
Come, Lord Jesus! Come and visit your people. We await your coming. Come, O Lord.
Preparing our Hearts and asking for the Grace We prepare this week by stepping up the longing.
We move through this week by naming deeper and more specific desires.
Each morning this week, if even for that brief moment at the side of our beds, we want to light a second inner candle. We want to let it represent “a bit more hope.” Perhaps we can pause, breathe deeply and say,
“Lord, I place my trust in you.”
Each day this week, as we encounter times that are rushed, even crazy, we can take that deep breath, and make that profound prayer. Each time we face some darkness, some experience of “parched land” or desert, some place where we feel “defeated” or “trapped,” we hear the words, “Our God will come to save us!”
The grace we desire for this week is to be able to hear the promise and to invite our God to come into those real places of our lives that dearly need God's coming. We want to be able to say:
“Lord, I place my trust in your promise. Please, Lord, rouse your power and come into this place in my life, this relationship, into this deep self-defeating pattern. Please come here and save me.”
Each night this week we can look back over the day and give thanks for the moments of deep breath, that opened a space for more trust and confidence in God's fidelity to us. No matter how difficult the challenges we are facing - from the growing realization of our personal sinfulness, to any experience of emptiness or powerlessness, even in the face of death itself - we can give thanks for the two candles that faithfully push back the darkness. And, we can give thanks for the graces given us to believe that “Our God will come to save us” because we were given the courageous faith to desire and ask boldly.
Come, Lord Jesus. Come and visit your people. We await your coming. Come, O Lord.
Gaudete Week Our week begins with “Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete means “rejoice” in Latin. It comes from the first word of the Entrance antiphon on Sunday. The spirit of joy that begins this week comes from the words of Paul, “The Lord is near.” This joyful spirit is marked by the third candle of our Advent wreath, which is rose colored, and the rose colored vestments often used at the Eucharist.
The second part of Advent begins on December 17th each year - this year, in 2011, it is Saturday of the Third Week of Advent. For the last eight days before Christmas, the plan of the readings changes. The first readings are still from the prophesies, but now the gospels are from the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. We read the stories of faithful women and men who prepared the way for our salvation. We enter into the story of how Jesus' life began. These stories are filled with hints of what his life will mean for us. Faith and generosity overcome impossibility. Poverty and persecution reveal glory.
Preparing our Hearts and asking for Grace
We prepare this week by feeling the joy. We move through this week feeling a part of the waiting world that rejoices because our longing has prepared us to believe the reign of God is close at hand. And so we consciously ask: Prepare our hearts and remove the sadness that hinders us from feeling the joy and hope which his presence will bestow.
Each morning this week, in that brief moment we are becoming accustomed to, we want to light a third inner candle. Three candles, going from expectation, to longing, to joy. They represent our inner preparation, or inner perspective. In this world of “conflict and division,” “greed and lust for power,” we begin each day this week with a sense of liberating joy. Perhaps we can pause, breathe deeply and say,
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”
Each day this week, we will continue to go through our everyday life, but we will experience the difference our faith can bring to it. We are confident that the grace we ask for will be given us. We will encounter sin - in our own hearts and in our experience of the sin of the world. We can pause in those moments, and feel the joy of the words,
“You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Mt 1:21
We may experience the Light shining into dark places of our lives and showing us patterns of sinfulness, and inviting us to experience God's mercy and healing. Perhaps we wish to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconcilation this week. We may want to make gestures of reconcilation with a loved one, relative, friend or associate. With more light and joy, it is easier to say, “I'm sorry; let's begin again.”
Each night this week we want to pause in gratitude. Whatever the day has brought, no matter how busy it has been, we can stop, before we fall asleep, to give thanks for a little more light, a little more freedom to walk by that light, in joy.
Our celebration of the coming of our Savior in history, is opening us up to experience his coming to us this year, and preparing us to await his coming in Glory.
Come, Lord Jesus. Come and visit your people. We await your coming. Come, O Lord.
The whole purpose of these Advent pages has been to help us find intimacy with God in the midst of our everyday lives.So we have focused on using the background times of our days to create an interior atmosphere that allows us to wait, to hope, to come into contact with our longing and our desire.
This year the Fourth Week of Advent is the full seven days long. Saturday evening is Christmas Eve and Sunday, Christmas.
Perhaps we can use these days to try to heighten our awareness of whatever is going on in our lives these days, and how that can bring us to Christmas. Some examples might help.
So many of us experience the ironic reality that Christmas can be the most lonely time of our lives. Some of these “mixed feelings” or “sad feelings” are difficult to recognize or name.
For some of us, the Christmas we will celebrate this year pales in comparison to wonderful Christmases of our past - perhaps because we were younger or more “innocent” then, perhaps because some of our loved ones who were central to our Christmas are no longer living or not where I am, perhaps because the burdens and struggles of my life or the changes in our world and the war have robbed this Christmas of something that was there before.
For some of us, Christmas will be just another day. Unable to get out to go to church to be with a faith community, and without family or friends to be with, Christmas will be a day we are tempted to ignore.
For some of us, Christmas inevitably means family conflicts. Facing the days ahead, whether it be the last few remaining parties, or conflicting demands of family and friends, or the friend or relative who drinks too much, or the experience I'm having that I drink too much and this season is an easy excuse.
For some of us, Christmas challenges us with terrible financial burdens. Children today become victims of the gross commercial exploitation of the day. For those of us struggling to make ends meet on a day to day basis, feeling the cultural pressure of buying for our children things which we can't afford, can lead us to put more debt on the credit card in ways that simply push us further and further behind.
Some of us, might be really looking forward to Christmas, and not be aware of these struggles with Christmas, yet feel that, in spite of our best efforts to make Advent different this year, there is still something missing, and we still feel unready for Christmas.
For all of us, the story behind these days can draw us in, and invite us to bring our lives to the mystery of how Jesus came into this world and why. Our best preparation for the Holy Night ahead and the Joyful Morning to follow is for us to reflect upon how he came. He came in the midst of scandal and conflict. He came in poverty. He was rejected before he was born. He was born in a feed trough. He was hunted down. And he grew up in obscurity.
He did not shun our world and its poverty and conflict. He embraced it. And he desires to embrace us today, in this day. Right where we are. Right where we are feeling most distant. Right were we are feeling least “religious” or “ready.” If we let him come into our hearts to be our Savior these challenging days, we will find ourselves entering the sacred night and morning of Christmas “joyful and triumphant” as never before.
Come, Lord Jesus. Come and visit your people. We await your coming. Come, O Lord.
Ignatian Spirituality: Set the World Ablaze
Fr. John Predmore, S.J
