Happy New Year

The Catholic World begins a new year tonight. Vespers, or as it is more commonly known, Evening Prayer, marks the beginning of the season of Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical year. Mass for this weekend features a reading from the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Throughout this next year, it will be his account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that we hear proclaimed on most Sundays.

Advent is a new beginning. The word "advent" is derived from the Latin word venire, "to come." In the context of this season, it refers to the coming of Christ in a threefold way: at Christmas, at the end of time, and daily into our own hearts. The major theme of Advent is preparation. Get ready! Jesus is coming. However, this preparation is not the frenzied sort of preparation familiar to Americans as they do their pre-Christmas shopping. Instead, there is a steadiness, a certain deliberateness, about Advent preparing. It is the sort of preparing that suggests that we have been getting ready for a long time. Advent preparation, indeed the entire repetitious rhythm of the Catholic liturgical year, reminds us that we have been living in anticipation of Christ's return for two millennia. In Advent, we are asked to take four weeks to slow down and re-evaluate the quality of our waiting. We have a part to play in God's great plan. Are we playing it? God desires our union with him. Are we cooperating? Jesus is coming. Are we ready?

I think that the image of a pregnant woman is an apt analogy for the Christian experience of Advent. Suddenly the pregnant woman's maternal instinct is stirred within her; she contemplates all the many things which her role of mother will require (and in the present requires of her!), yet she must wait, patiently, for the coming of her child. There is little she can do to quicken that coming. Nevertheless, she remains constantly aware that the moment is fast approaching, even as she goes about her daily affairs. It is a joyful, inescapable reality. In eager patience, she readies herself for that moment.

And in patience, we prepare to welcome our Lord.

Come, Lord Jesus!