Advent

If I were challenged to describe every liturgical season with a single word, Repentance would be the word I'd use for Lent. A solemn inventory and turning away from the bad choices. For Ordinary time, I would us Perseverance. The need to keep fresh and renewed and committed through the long haul. For Triduum, the word Sorrow. Sorrow for what Our Lord suffered and all that I contributed to it. For Easter, I would choose the word Glorious. Christ's Glorious conquest of death is the greatest victory mankind has ever known. For Christmas, the word Joy is the word. Joy to the world and Jesu, Joy of man's desiring.

Where does Advent, fit into all this? Well, Advent is the first Liturgical season, the start of the new journey. Every new journey begins with Hope. Hope is at the core of Advent, both in reliving the hope our predecessors had in the coming of the Messiah and in the hope, we now have of His return. That is the very principle of Advent.

As we draw the lens in, we hope that Jesus will help us in our current hours and days, through our current trials and dilemmas. As we draw the lens out, we hope to finish the race and pass the test and rise to heaven.

The true practice of the virtue of hope can never be divorced from the vivid images that proclaim it but those same images are always in danger of being coopted to evil ends.

The secular world does this switcheroo every year at this time. What we call the Advent season, they call the Christmas season. Ours is a season of penitence and renewal roughly starting with the feast of Saint Andrew. Theirs starts with Santa's arrival in Herald Square in New York City. Theirs is a celebration of greed and avarice and ''what will I get?". A total focus on self. Ours is a reflection on poverty and giving and sacrifice and the question of, through God's Grace, what might I become?

In the end, the air that is the Joy of their Christmas, escapes from the ballon about noon time on December 25th, as they collapse from the exhaustion, they put upon themselves and fall asleep on the couch with a basketball game playing on the TV. We, on the other hand, though we may have a Santa and a Frosty in our front yard, a house bespeckled with lights and the warm smells of turkey and pie wafting through the air, cannot be disappointed because we see beyond those things. The source of our Christmas joy is expressed by the Manger scene on the fireplace mantle, and the firm conviction that He will not be shut out by the Inn of our hearts like he was in Bethlehem on that December night.

In Advent, we hope to welcome not just the lights but the Light Himself, because the people who walked in darkness have seen that great light. A focus on a single day cannot help but disappoint. However, the celebration of that single day can aid in the renewal of our dedication in the march toward that eternal day.

The perspective helps us shake off the letdowns from our unrealized and, sometimes, unrealistic expectations.

Our secular society often reminds of this. About every fourth holiday song you hear this year is going to be about missing someone, wishing you or they could come back home. Half of the holiday movies will show the turkey being burnt or devoured by dogs or of a family member estranged or sick or gone.

Every year, "I'll have a Blue Christmas without you" will play on the radio and someone who has heard it a hundred times will now truly feel it for the first time. The scene in the movie is no longer entertainment. The line in the song is no longer just words. The light of the season is drowned out in an ocean of loneliness and sorrow.

The cold fact is that this day, this season and even this life, cannot fulfill and satisfy the longing of our hearts. Only God can do that and only His Son was sent here for that purpose.

Hope in Christmas day will disappoint. Hope in the Christmas season will disappoint. Hope in a happy, fulfilling life will disappoint.

Advent cannot disappoint because Advent transcends all the things that do. Its hope is not defeated by the family member who won't reconcile or by the one who has been victimized by a crime or accident or illness. Advent is not even defeated by death.

Advent doesn't forget those things will happen and it doesn't deny that they have happened. The difference is that the hope of the world is conquered by these things while the hope of Advent conquers these things. If I have the hope of Advent, I have the hope of Christ, if I have the hope of Christ, I have the hope of eternal live. Where death, is your victory?