So, I heard a weird rumor at Mass last weekend.
The deacon said that it was the third Sunday of Advent. Of course, we all know that couldn’t be true. Advent just started a few days ago, right? And in the meantime life has been crazy.
My 200-plus Christmas cards just went out yesterday, after hitting multiple snags. I finally did most of my Christmas shopping, thanks to the great blessing of Amazon Prime. I spent a couple of days in San Francisco last week. And now I am preparing to board a flight back there for another quick trip. This column should have been turned in a week ago. I now write it from Gate 42 at Denver International Airport.
I still have plenty of time to pray, to prepare and to meditate on the birth of Christ, don’t I?
By the time you read this, most likely Advent will be over, and we will be well into the swing of the Christmas season — because you all remember that the Christmas season begins with Christmas, right? You will be celebrating and giving thanks to God for sending us a Savior, and reveling in the graces that the season brought you.
Well, unless you blew through the season like I apparently have.
Advent is supposed to be a time not just of holiday preparation but of spiritual preparation. What are we preparing for? The birth of the Savior. At Christmas we commemorate something that happened more than 2,000 years ago — the beginning — the most important event in human history. God became man because he loves us and wants to save us.
That salvation is universal, of course. Because of sin, man was estranged from God. And so, Christ came to heal that rupture, to open the gates of heaven to all who do what he calls us to. And that echoes until this very day, as he works to save us from our estrangement from him.
But it’s also personal because we all need a Savior in unique ways. We all need to be saved at the end of our lives, of course. But along the way, we need to be saved from the sin that clings to us so easily. We need to be saved from our own stupidity and weakness. We need to be healed of the effects of sin — our sin and those of others around us — that impact us in our own lives. We need to be healed of the depression, the anger, the grief, the illness — all of those crosses that, try though we might, we can’t get free of on our own.
And that salvation looks different for each one of us.
This is the Savior who comes to us every year at Christmas. The one who loves us uniquely, individually. The one who knows us better than we know ourselves — our struggles, our weaknesses, the places where we beat ourselves up over our failures. And, as impossible as it seems in the midst of our sin and failure and “junk,” he loves us, totally, completely, compassionately. And he wants to save us at the end of our lives, for sure. But he also wants to save us from what binds us in this life.
And that salvation isn’t just for ourselves. It is for the sake of others, for the world. He has a mission for your saved self, a mission that he has entrusted to no one else, so that the salvation you receive doesn’t end with you but echoes through the ages.
So yes, Christmas is personal.
But what do we do when Christmas sneaks up on us, when we get busy and neglect to do the spiritual preparation that Advent calls us to, the preparation that is supposed to lead to all of this healing and wholeness and salvation?
In the words of the Venerable Bruno Lanteri, we “begin again.”
I don’t want to excuse what I have done, to defend a mediocre Advent spent entirely in a haze of holiday chaos. But neither do I believe that the God who loves us and wants what is best for us is going to put a deadline, arbitrary or not, on the gifts that he wants to give us.
So go back to him. Go to confession — as I plan to do — and repent of your mediocre efforts to prepare for his coming. And then redouble your efforts.
Set aside daily time for prayer. Meditate on his birth and on the human condition — then and now — that led to the need for a Savior. Thank him daily for the gifts he has already given you, not just for the obvious ones. Of course, thank him for your friends and your family and the roof over your head and the great vacation you got to enjoy. But also, thank him for the spiritual gifts he gives you — for that insight you received in prayer last week, for the strength to do the right thing when you are tempted to just “go with the flow.”
And then, ask him to give you whatever graces, whatever healing he has for you. Ask him for help in the areas you want healed, where you think you need salvation, where you want guidance in your own personal mission. But keep in mind that he sees a much bigger picture than we do. And his main concern is eternity — he wants you with him forever. I firmly believe that if we pray for healing, and we are open to his will and work mightily to cooperate with the graces he gives us, we will receive healing. But it may not be the healing we want or think we need. It will, however, be the healing that the God of the universe, who loves each of us with an infinite love, knows is best and knows will help bring us to eternal life with him.
No matter who you are or where you have been, the “Hound of Heaven” is pursuing you. He has gifts he longs to give to you, if only you would be open to receiving them. Those gifts carry no expiration date.
Don’t beat yourself up over a mediocre Advent. Go to him now and “begin again.”
Bonacci is a syndicated columnist based in Denver.
