From The Pastor’s Desk
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners,
Happy New Year! On this First Sunday of Advent, we begin a new liturgical year. As always, early in Advent, we hear from the prophet Isaiah in the readings from the Mass. Isaiah was writing to and for the Israelites, but his words also have meaning for us today. We recall the Israelite’s situation. The temple and their nation had been destroyed and they had been exiled from their country for 70 long years. “Rend the heavens and come down!” writes Isaiah. (Is 64:1) With this anguished prayer, it is as if Isaiah is asking: “Lord God, why would you do this to us?”
Isaiah and the Israelites longed for a Savior. They felt hopeless, helpless and lost. One of the lessons of Advent is that we need to be saved. We can’t save ourselves. So, we need a Savior. Nowadays, perhaps, we have a difficult time relating to the situation of the Israelites. We live in a culture that has it all figured out. We tend to want to make Jesus less than a Savior. We think of him as we would a wise man or guru. Perhaps, we even treat him as we would a pet. He’s good to have around to keep us company, but he would never make too much demands on us. We live in culture that teaches us to be self-assertive and self-reliant. “Who are you to tell me how to behave?” we say. This is all very un-Christian. What does the Christian believe? Listen to the words of one well-known Advent hymn: “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here....” The Israelites felt like they were captive or kidnaped. When one is kidnaped, one can only wait to be freed. One needs to be “bought back” which is what “redeemed” literally means. In other words, one needs a Redeemer or a Savior.
How do we allow God to save us? Let’s listen to Isaiah again: “...we are sinful; all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.” (Is 64:6) Sounds pretty bleak, but there is hope: “Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you are the potter: we are the work of your hands.” (Is 64:8) In other words, we acknowledge our sinfulness and we allow God to form us. To allow God to form us, we have to recognize that we don’t have all the answers on our own. We realize that we need a Savior to get us out of our own dysfunction and sin. Only then, do we put ourselves in a position to allow God to form us. If we are spiritually alive, God can form us. If we are dry and brittle, we break in the Potter’s hands.
Another lesson of Advent is that this forming in the Potter’s hands takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. We need to be patient. Advent teaches us to be patient. As we know, it is very difficult to live Advent faithfully these days, because all around us, everyone is already saying it’s Christmas. But Advent is a time of waiting and expectation. Waiting takes patience. To wait for something is not easy, especially in today’s world. We want things now, whether it be something we buy on-line or some information that we can get instantly through our technology. We are impatient. We want God to answer our prayers now and we want Him to answer them the way we think He should answer them. Ultimately, though, our impatience is a result of the Fall, of the Original Sin. The life of grace and faith teach us the importance of waiting. Pope Francis says: “Faith by its very nature demands the renouncing of immediate possession which sight would appear to offer.” (Lumen Fidei, 13) We need to be patient and prepared. That’s what our Lord is saying in the Gospel. When one is really prepared, it is easier to be patient.
This Advent, we are on a journey. Indeed, our whole life is a journey. And on this life journey, we are in exile until we reach our ultimate destination which is heaven. How well we travel on this journey, whether it be our Advent journey or our life journey, will be determined by how much we allow the Potter to form us. This Advent, we pray that we for God, our Savior to save us from all our sinfulness. We pray that we allow the Potter to form us. May we patiently allow Him to heal us of all our spiritual infirmities, so that when the Christ Child comes at Christmas, God’s gift of peace and joy can resound in our hearts and lives.
May you have a blessed Advent!
In Christ,
Fr. Berg
