Advent

First Sunday of Advent

These are strange circumstances in which to begin our preparations for Christmas.  We are still not able to celebrate Masses with a congregation, although that should change next week, and we do not know quite what Christmas will look like.  Nevertheless, this weekend we begin the season of Advent. 

 Between now and Christmas we will be thinking about the coming of Christ.  However, the readings of this time are not just about the events immediately leading up to Christmas.  We begin by looking forward to the coming of Christ at the end of time as in this Sunday’s Gospel.  This is the ultimate fulfilment of that coming of Christ as one of which begins in the stable of Bethlehem.  It leads to reflect on whether we live as people who know that God has come and shared our lives and calls us to share in his life in heaven.  Does that awareness shape the way we live and the choices we make?  

 Thinking about that way of life and those choices also reflects another theme of this time.  The way in which the Kingdom of God is among us now.  Christ has already come into our world and we are called to build up that Kingdom of justice, love and peace which the Preface talked about last Sunday.    

 This Advent will be different.  Even though we will be able to celebrate public worship it will be in a restricted way and for somethings numbers will be limited.  Normally at this time Farm Street Church would have a whole series of carol services for different organisations.  This year there will just be one and that will be online.  Many of us would also be involved in Christmas parties and gatherings.  An example of how things are different is that the lights in Mount Street were turned on this year quietly, without the usual celebration and crowds.  We may miss these things but there is a way they can be disruptive.  They can take us away from Advent, from the season of preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ.  Perhaps this year will enable us to focus more on that spiritual process of preparation. 

 Perhaps, too, a more restricted, quieter, Christmas may help to focus more clearly on the first Christmas.  Mary and Joseph had their lives disrupted although in a different way to ours.  For them it was the census, which forced them to travel to a distant, crowded, city with no room at the inn, just at the time when the pregnant Mary most needed quiet and the support of family and friends.  We too may well be experiencing separation. In our case we may find ourselves unable to travel, we may be alone and unable to join with others we would normally see at Christmas.  However, like Mary and Joseph we are having to adapt.  That may help us to remember them and their struggles. 

 In the midst of the disruption experienced by the Holy Family Christ comes into our world and shares that experience of a life of uncertainty and having to cope with difficult circumstances.  He is God-with-us.  As we experience this Advent and Christmas we know that Christ is with us today: with us in our struggles and difficulties, with us as one who has shared the ups and downs of human life, as one who gives hope whatever we experience, as who brings light and hope in our darkness.  

 Fr Chris Pedley SJ