Friends
Peace be with you.
I probably shouldn’t admit this but one of my favorite movies that I watch every year around this time is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Now, I know of at least one scene in that movie that is outright morally inappropriate and there are some curse words in it so please don’t think of this as an endorsement. But, if you’ve ever seen the movie, you know that Clarke, the patriarch of the family, takes it upon himself to have an old fashioned Giswald family Christmas complete with a fully decorated house with 250 strands of lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand for a total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights. As he’s standing on his snow-covered front lawn staring at the unlit house that he has spent hours in the cold decorating, Clarke has a twinkle in his eye in anticipation of seeing it all lit up. He has his wife, children, parents, and even his inlaws surrounding him making their best approximation of a drum roll as he triumphantly sings “JOY TO THE WORLD” while connecting the end of his extension cord to the extension cord plugged into the wall…only to have absolutely nothing happen. All that build-up for nothing.
How many Advents have we been hearing this same set of readings? Stay awake! If the master of the house had known when the thief was coming, he wouldn’t have let his house get broken into. Well of course, Jesus, if a thief sent you a text message letting you know when he was going to break into your house at noon next Tuesday, he’d be a pretty pathetic thief. You’d catch him or scare him off pretty easily. Thieves tend to strike when we don’t expect them. The trouble is that it kinda feels more like we should be asking you where you are more than we are unprepared for your coming. In other words, where were you this spring when a shooter entered Rob Elementary in Uvalde, Texas and slaughtered 19 children and 2 adults or a few days ago when a gunman entered a Walmart and started shooting the employees? Where were you when the evil one made cancer or heart attacks or RSV or covid-19 or other illnesses? Where are you in the war in Ukraine? There’s a side to me that says we’ve been awake for a while now waiting for your return…a long while.
Yet, I know Jesus is here. He’s in the Blessed Sacrament that we adore each and every day in our chapel. We are in need of adorers, by the way. Is this your call to wake and spend an hour with Jesus? There are so many events that seek to extinguish the life of faith that Jesus’ gift of the Eucharist can help to inflame and enlighten. Especially as we begin this new liturgical year, it’s a good time to ask if we can give an hour to the Lord to stay awake with him in prayer and take home a bulletin to sign up. Jesus is also present in the helpers, the police officers, firefighters, healthcare workers, and all the people who help in times of need. I’ve had a few situations recently where I’ve personally been thankful for these people’s presence to help me and I’m eternally grateful for them. Jesus comes when we ask forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is a good time of year to renew that practice of seeking forgiveness and staying awake for the coming of the savior, though, in truth, any time at any point of the year we are conscious of serious sins or venial sins that are building up on our consciences is a good time to confess them and walk free.
Maybe the challenge is that we have this expectation that, when Jesus comes, it’ll be a huge, very obvious event with the light of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights. Instead, it’s a single candle on an Advent wreath signaling Christ’s presence in what appears to be bread, in the helpfulness of others, and in the forgiveness we seek. Maybe not as flashy, true, which is why we need to be reminded to stay awake.
