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If we believe in God, we have to believe that God is more powerful than we.
-Rev. John Phalen
Advent Adventure
Rev. John Phalen, CSC, PresidentHoly Cross Family Ministries
I know a family whose father works quite a distance from home. In fact, he has to stay during the whole week long in another city entirely and he gets to come home on Friday night after quite a journey. It’s not the best arrangement but it seems, oddly enough, to be unifying the family!
Weeknights can be difficult. The wife and mother allows someone who has all their homework done and has not stretched her patience to the breaking-point that day, to stay up past their bedtime so that she, the mother, would not have to watch T.V. alone. Of course, this is a privilege the little ones compete for. It creates a sense of adventure. It tends to keep people in line those long nights when mom is the only adult authority at home.
And when Friday finally comes, everybody is excited. When dad’s car pulls up there is a reception fit for a king with dramatic hugs and kisses all around. I think mom is OK with that, even though the young ones never seem to make such a fuss over her since she is always there.
So how does this scene compare with our Advent waiting? What has happened in the family is that a situation of necessary absence creates a spirit of adventure around the weekly waiting for dad to come home. In a way, that compares with our Advent waiting. Maybe we could use a little more of that sense of adventure, though, as we wait.
We await of course, not the return of dad from work, but the feast of the Incarnation, that God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Our waiting is a preparation to accept that fact, that God “cares enough to send the very best,” His Son, Emmanuel, God with us!
And how well do we grasp this fact? Not well enough! Much as the younger members of the family know nothing of the sacrifices made by both parents during the week, we tend to miss the significance of God leaving heaven to come to this “Valley of Tears” to suffer with the rest of humanity. This is no small sacrifice. It perhaps can put into perspective the smaller sacrifices we are asked to make for family and friends. There is no greater adventure than the Incarnation which in Advent we prepare to celebrate.
In Advent we also await the “final coming” of Christ in all his glory at the end of the world. Talk about a sense of adventure: there will be a new heaven and a new earth. All will be totally consumed with this dramatic event, when the Kingdom of God can be seen in all its glory.
The Last Judgment scene used to be the 5th Glorious Mystery. It’s been changed by common practice to the Coronation of Mary. Fr. Peyton wanted to employ George Lucas, the producer of Star Wars, to do an unforgettable arrangement of that scene. He had given George his first Hollywood employment. The movie was never made, but imagine the joyful sense of expectation leading up to—not the movie—but the real event. All will be taken up in Christ! Let’s find the adventure in Advent this year!