The Bishop Writes

(From the Dec. 3, 1998 edition of the Inland Register)

Considerable emphasis in our society is placed upon looking young. Cosmetic surgery, hair dye, skin creams, and extra padding attempt to handle the sags, the wrinkles, the graying, and the spots. The biological process of aging is never stopped, and like the Holy Father, we enter the autumn of our lives, leading ultimately to winter. As the saying goes, we are all terminal.

We are concluding another liturgical year as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King and begin anew the season of Advent. The root meaning of Advent means "coming." For us in the Catholic tradition, this coming refers, of course, to the Lord.

Our life on earth goes through fairly rapid transitions to the point of death when we will see the Lord face to face. This transformation in the "twinkling of an eye," as St. Paul reminds us, entails a new birth as we leave the temporary home of our earthly bodies and encounter the Risen Savior in a glory and fullness we have never experienced before.

Very often there is the temptation to cling to life and loved ones as they once were, but life is never the same as we journey onward. We can push the replay buttons of our memory, but the lived moment never backtracks. Life unfolds. The Savior comes. The Savior loves. The Savior raises us up.

The transition from the end of the liturgical year to another Advent urges us to accept transitions in life as part of our cycle of dying and coming to fuller life with the Lord. This fragile, earthbound tent of our body is a marvel of creation and mystery. With Jesus as our King, we are reminded that the Savior is Lord of our lives. We journey beyond the visible horizon to the mystery beyond, to the coming of the kingdom of God as a permanent home with the communion of saints, with all of those who have gone before.

There is always a spirit of eager anticipation during Advent Season as we prepare for the celebration of the coming of the Savior into our world. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem Square points to a real time and place of that spectacular event in history. However, that moment continues to be a spark from the past which now lights up our lives in appreciation of the Advent of Jesus in our hearts and on our faith journey. The star of Bethlehem pointed to what was present, beyond the immediate physical sight. The events surrounding the coming of Jesus were ordinary happenings in people’s lives. As a matter of fact, some of them were not all that pleasant. Nonetheless, this is the way God chose.

The humanity of that first Advent should remind us of the humanity of the present day Advent as well. The star of the liturgy continues to shine. Some hear a special call by God. Some experience a journey of hardship. Some experience no room in the inn. Some experience the untimely death of the Holy Innocents by being killed, and others are caught in the traumatic, natural disaster of a Hurricane Mitch which leads them to their final Advent. The Word of God enfleshed in a tiny infant speaks of humility, silence, great vulnerability and helplessness.

Through memory and reflection, we now understand what happened then. The season of Advent helps us to see more clearly now. We use the experience of what has gone before to read the signs and signals, however weak and veiled, more accurately.

In recent months the Hubble telescope has been used by astronomers to search the heavens. New discoveries have been made, some of them even more mysterious than before. We can only look at this magnificent universe, humbled and appreciative of the grandeur of it all. For some scientists this search into the unknown has been a conversion experience as they have come to realize that humanly we can only go so far. The Lord has come into their lives with new insight, gratitude, and appreciation.

Cardinal Martini of Milan has observed that the heart of Christ is like an observatory from which we can look at all of history. During this Advent season, we can put our eyes to the eyepiece of our spiritual telescope and look at the universe of our lives. We see by faith, not by sight, as St. Paul reminds us. We will be humbled. We will discover. We will know more clearly our limitations and the need for dependency upon our God. We will see Jesus coming in many ways -- some clear and distinct, others faint, veiled and twinkling like the star.

Advent continues, and we rejoice in hopeful expectation....

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