November 30, 2020
Editor’s note: This reflection was originally published on Fr. Mark-David’s Facebook page.
There are a lot of things to wait for this Advent:
the end of 2020,
an available vaccine,
a job,
visiting family,
Midnight Mass,
a chance at Christmas,
more poignantly, the hope of being reunited
with loved ones who have died.
One thing we do not have to wait for this Advent
is the Christ.
The Risen Christ has never left us.
We wait only to recognize Christ
all those places Christ taught us to look:
Within ourselves, our neighbors, strangers
even within our enemies,
especially in the least of human beings.
Christ waits for us to recognize him
amidst the darkness of indifference.
Pope Francis again warns of this in his recent encyclical:
“In today’s world, the sense of belonging
to a single human family is fading
and the dream of working together
for justice and peace seems an outdated utopia.
What reigns instead is a cool comfortable
and globalized indifference,
born of deep disillusionment
concealed behind a deceptive illusion:
thinking we are all powerful, while failing to realize
we are all in the same boat…
How wonderful would it be,
even as we discover faraway planets,
to rediscover the needs of the brothers and sisters
who orbit around us.”
We light an Advent candle
to strengthen the glow in our hearts
that we might see, amidst the darkness
the Christ present in the needs those who surround us.
The needs of those we love most
hidden now by the busyness and worry of our life
that inadvertently, but nevertheless, takes them for granted.
The needs of people so bereft we call them, “the needy”
always as Christ warned, with us, with problems so great
we feel as hopeless as they to change their lot in life.
The needs hidden in our our heart,
disappointments to which we are now accustomed,
hopes we have long since put away,
loves we no longer hope for.
The needs of a warming and wasting planet
so much larger than we,
we question what is the point
of lighting our little candle amidst the cursing darkness.
Lighting our candle is exactly what Advent is about,
lighting once again the flame of courage
the vision of hope,
the fire of love
for ourselves, those we love and those we know not at all.
Advent gives light to the hope
the Holy Spirit breathes into us,
the hope, the love, the sacrifice within us
dispelling enough darkness
that we might see Christ’s love
within us and in all who have lost sight of love.
“It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness”
so we spend Advent, lighting candles of our heart
that enable us to see the Christ who came Christmas
once and forever more,
joining ourselves to Pope Francis’ prayer:
“Grant that Christians may live the Gospel
discovering Christ in each human being,
recognizing him crucified
in the sufferings of the abandoned and forgotten of our world,
and risen in each brother and sister
who makes a new start.
Come Holy Spirit, show us your beauty
reflected in all the peoples of the earth,
so that we may discover anew
that all are important and all are necessary,
different faces of the one humanity
that God so loves. Amen”
Paulist Fr. Mark David Janus is president of Paulist Press.