Advent Vision

by Fr. Ron Raab, C.S.C.
Originally published in Ministry and Liturgy, September 2007


Joe waited ten arduous years for his cataract surgery. Living alone and struggling with addictions, he battled negotiating with insurance companies, balancing medications for depression, and securing shelter for his recovery. Four days after his surgery, he came back to the RCIA group and read out loud for the first time in a decade. Trusting his new eyes, he proclaimed authentically the Gospel for the First Sunday of Advent.

When Joe pounded on the chapel doors to begin the Rite of Acceptance later that morning, I opened the red doors with tears in my eyes. The entire community loudly voiced their support when I asked for their willingness to pray for Joe. The community already knew Joe, his struggles, his blindness, and his courage to wait for a better life. We all saw his situation more clearly as he walked through the doors without his thick oversized glasses.

Joe continues to remove the scales from my own eyes. He leads me by example to show me that my stock answers about faith and church need to be replaced with other, less simple answers, ones based in my incomplete humanity. My desire for God emerges when I pay attention to my real need for love and intimacy. I learn to trust others when I finally realize faith is not about my self-sufficiency. I speak the Church’s tradition authentically only when I learn to listen to others and speak the truth that can heal people.

My parish community continues to learn that Advent is about people. The season reveals our longing for God to take our flesh more seriously. Through our aches and pains, we are all learning to turn to the God who entrusted His son to our weary nature. We have no easy answers to our homelessness, our alcohol addiction and our desire to sell our bodies for money. So we turn to the only source of love we know, the power of grace in the fragile community we call the Church.

We are all learning to trust one another through the thick uncertainty of our longing. God reveals healing, peace and security only in the center of fragile lives and inconsolable hearts. We live as Advent people waiting to hear prophets’ voices and feel the consolation of hope in our bodies. This trust becomes flesh because we need to find housing for one another, health care to stay alive, or to offer a simple change of clothing.

Advent can also open the eyes of your community of faith. Even though anyone can get caught in the trappings of worrying about the appropriate shades of purple for the priest’s chasuble or argue about the pros and cons of artificial greens for the Advent wreath, we can still begin to see things differently. Advent is the process of cultivating deep longing for God. We find that craving when we trust that even in our weakness, God has not abandoned us.

If your community celebrates the Rite of Acceptance during the Advent season, allow your assembly insight into why people want to be baptized into the Church. Find new ways for the community to hear their stories, become acquainted with their pasts, and learn to support their physical and spiritual needs. Your assembly should already know your catechumens or candidates before this rite is celebrated. Call people to a deeper honesty about why they are willing to support new members in the Church.

Many assemblies celebrate the communal Rite of Reconciliation as a community or with other local parishes. The Rite provides an opportunity to articulate some of the real concerns of our culture during the months of November and December. Use this rite to reflect back to people their despair about war, or concern for the orphans and widows left behind. The fragile peace we all carry because of our chronic depression, children born prematurely, or hurtful childhood memories needs to be spoken and embraced. We all must take the risk of naming the darkness around us so the Light of Peace can open our eyes.

Every liturgy of Advent must break through the culture’s lies that materialism and over-consumption will lead to happiness. When we pray deeper into the mystery of Advent we find that entering into the darkness is the only thing that will banish it. No office parties, bulging credit lines, or over-indulging on sugar cookies will ultimately satisfy our needs. Advent calls us into a deeper trust in the human condition, because that is where Christ births within us a new vision of ourselves.