Advent

This season of Advent is beautiful, brief, and busy. People at the parish seem to be responding to the call to step up their games spiritually. I’ve seen an uptick in people coming for daily Mass and confession. I’ve been inspired by several, beautiful instances of humility. This coming weekend, we will hear a couple of times about “every mountain being made low” – this is referring to our pride. It’s all part of the call to repentance in order to prepare for the coming of Christ.

Advent is also a bit confusing. We know that Advent leads to Christmas which celebrates Christ’s birth. The readings at Mass, reflections, and prayers take us back 2,000 years ago for Christ’s first coming. We revisit the preparation of the people back then which actually spans hundreds of years (going back to the Old Testament promises of the Messiah). As I mentioned recently on our new parish podcast, it’s like we use a time machine to travel back to the time of the birth of Christ.

And yet, we are presently preparing for the second coming of Christ. The people to whom I referred above might be thinking it’s a good idea and honorable to go to confession before Christmas, but I think their primary motivation ultimately is to prepare for judgment. Particular judgment happens for each of us at the end of our lives and a general judgment happens for all of us at end of the world (second coming of Christ). The best preparation for judgment / the Lord’s coming is to have our mountains (of pride) lowered and our valleys (of humility) raised.