Today the Roman Catholic Lectionary marks the beginning of a new liturgical year. The messages of the new year are similar to the messages which ended the previous year. Be Alert! The experience of the in dwelling Spirit which opens our being to the invitation to welcome the Incarnation and to become aware of the distractions in our lives which dampen the experience of Life and the dispositions which make hope difficult. Hope is the essence of prayer. Hope is the communication with the Divine. The Advent season is the opportunity to celebrate and exercise Hope for our prayer and the return of order to our lives.
To do this we are called to check up on the disorders within and around us to which Jesus is constantly arriving. I write the following with some care, based on experience. We do not really want a Savior! We want an approver. We do not want a negative judge whom we fear, but an approving and benevolent assessor. Most Christians, it seems to me on this first Sunday of Advent, want to sweep away their pasts or presents and hope that the God of Vengeance doesn’t see even the carpet under which have been swept the disorders. A second group of Christians wants to pretend that the disorders or need for integrity do not exist and they stay alert to their denials. A third group spends their lives obsessed with their doing nothing but the right and corrects things so that a savior for them is quite unnecessary. (Gillick SJ, 2009)
Works Cited
Gillick SJ, L. (2009, November 29). Daily Reflection. Retrieved November 2009, 2009, from Creighton University's Online Ministries : http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/112909.html
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