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ADVENT REFLECTIONS
bobcat
Joined : 2008-03-02
Location : Canada
bobcat
Joined : 2008-03-02
Location : Canada
29 November [1st Sunday of Advent]
Lk 21:25-28, 3
"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.... Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."
The Advent liturgy is shot through with a great longing for Christ. But John the Baptist is constantly putting in an appearance – almost to the point of irritation. What is the meaning of this?
We have to experience the absence of Christ in order later to experience his presence. We need to learn how to wait. Waiting is one of the hardest things for us nowadays. There is such urgency about even the smallest things in our modern world, and this of course is greatly aggravated by commercial advertising. But Advent is a four-week course on waiting.
“Zero wait state,” the computer manual said the goal was. It means no waiting at all: you press the key, and the programme (or whatever) is instantly on the screen. Computers are the great accelerators of all sorts of processes (banking, accounting, shopping, etc.) and they themselves are becoming faster and faster. But for the ordinary user, such high speed is required only to run games – which are themselves the greatest time-wasters in the world! The speed of our world today is full of contradictions. We rush to save time in order to be able to waste it!
Time is money, we say. And sure enough, we do with money what we do with time: many rush to save more and more of it in order to waste it on things they don't need or even want.
Can the equation be carried even farther? Time is money; but what is time? What is your time? It is you, it is yourself, your life. Time is life. Do we save our life in order to waste it? It seems we do. “Whoever tries to save his life will lose it,” said Jesus (Luke 17:37).
We rush headlong into the future: it is a kind of greed for more and more life, or at least for more and more experience. The future, we feel, will fulfil us, where the past and present have failed. But we rush at it so fast that it gets no chance to fulfil us! We rush past it in the same instant that it becomes the present: because we are forever hurtling ourselves into the future. We badly need to study waiting.
No one knows with certainty what the reason is (or the cluster of reasons) for the high incidence of suicide in modern western societies. People have made various suggestions. One suggestion is that we no longer know how to wait for anything. In older times, struggle and working for something and waiting for it to be realised, were the normal experience. It may be that ‘zero wait state’ has really got into us. Advent, the season of waiting, has something to teach us.
“Prepare the way of the Lord!” shouted Isaiah. He meant “Repair the road!” Jerusalem is surrounded by desert, and ancient roads quite easily became buried in sand. When some great person was expected, the roads had to be prepared.
Roads are about communication and getting around. The roads that need attention now are inner ones. The underlying problem is a spiritual one. The Western world is seen by many to be spiritually lost – clogged with material possessions and confused with too much information about everything. Advent is the season for unclogging the path and for putting up clearer sign-posts. It is a season for repairing the roads! And learning to wait.
Advent, teach us something!
Lk 21:25-28, 3
"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.... Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."
The Advent liturgy is shot through with a great longing for Christ. But John the Baptist is constantly putting in an appearance – almost to the point of irritation. What is the meaning of this?
We have to experience the absence of Christ in order later to experience his presence. We need to learn how to wait. Waiting is one of the hardest things for us nowadays. There is such urgency about even the smallest things in our modern world, and this of course is greatly aggravated by commercial advertising. But Advent is a four-week course on waiting.
“Zero wait state,” the computer manual said the goal was. It means no waiting at all: you press the key, and the programme (or whatever) is instantly on the screen. Computers are the great accelerators of all sorts of processes (banking, accounting, shopping, etc.) and they themselves are becoming faster and faster. But for the ordinary user, such high speed is required only to run games – which are themselves the greatest time-wasters in the world! The speed of our world today is full of contradictions. We rush to save time in order to be able to waste it!
Time is money, we say. And sure enough, we do with money what we do with time: many rush to save more and more of it in order to waste it on things they don't need or even want.
Can the equation be carried even farther? Time is money; but what is time? What is your time? It is you, it is yourself, your life. Time is life. Do we save our life in order to waste it? It seems we do. “Whoever tries to save his life will lose it,” said Jesus (Luke 17:37).
We rush headlong into the future: it is a kind of greed for more and more life, or at least for more and more experience. The future, we feel, will fulfil us, where the past and present have failed. But we rush at it so fast that it gets no chance to fulfil us! We rush past it in the same instant that it becomes the present: because we are forever hurtling ourselves into the future. We badly need to study waiting.
No one knows with certainty what the reason is (or the cluster of reasons) for the high incidence of suicide in modern western societies. People have made various suggestions. One suggestion is that we no longer know how to wait for anything. In older times, struggle and working for something and waiting for it to be realised, were the normal experience. It may be that ‘zero wait state’ has really got into us. Advent, the season of waiting, has something to teach us.
“Prepare the way of the Lord!” shouted Isaiah. He meant “Repair the road!” Jerusalem is surrounded by desert, and ancient roads quite easily became buried in sand. When some great person was expected, the roads had to be prepared.
Roads are about communication and getting around. The roads that need attention now are inner ones. The underlying problem is a spiritual one. The Western world is seen by many to be spiritually lost – clogged with material possessions and confused with too much information about everything. Advent is the season for unclogging the path and for putting up clearer sign-posts. It is a season for repairing the roads! And learning to wait.
Advent, teach us something!
silvester
Joined : 2008-03-02
Age : 49
Location : someWhere out there
Status : Married
Hometown : D&G