For as the
days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those
days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the
flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of
Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two
women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.
Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But
understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night
the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his
house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready for the Son of Man is
coming at an unexpected hour.
Pay attention!
Advent is here and the first thing the
readings and the Church tell us is pay attention! “Be
ready,” says Jesus. For what? For the mother of all natural disasters?
For our co-worker to suddenly disappear before our eyes? For Jesus to come one
last time? There is no healthy reason
to wake up every day expecting it to be the last one before the world implodes
and there is no great spiritual benefit to keeping fearfully awake wondering if every
bump in the night of our souls is a thief or if it’s Jesus coming to take us away so what should we be paying attention to?
How does this Gospel apply to us every day and not just in Advent? How can it
further our spiritual growth and relationship with the Lord?
Advent: the arrival of a notable
person, thing or event. We’re called to pay attention to the arrival of this
notable person and naturally, at this time of year we immediately think of
Christmas as the notable event that heralds the arrival of the notable person,
Jesus. We think Advent is the time of preparation for this arrival. But advent
does not mean ‘preparation’; it means the arrival. But we are encouraged to use this
season to make ourselves mindful of the advent of Jesus and, in terms of our
everyday life, he is coming all the time. Pay attention. Jesus comes. Now.
Yesterday has gone and tomorrow never
comes. Yet, where do our minds most often dwell? We tend to live predominantly in either the
past or in the future. We are rarely in the present moment or wholly
attentive to it. Part of us is usually engaged in
remembering things that happened in the past (usually the worst things) while another
part of us is constantly exploring the possibilities of the future, good and bad. A very
small part of us is in the present dealing with the demands of the moment and
for most of us, that small part is very small indeed. If the task of the moment
is dull routine our minds try to find stimulation in the past or the future. If the present moment is demanding and
stressful, our visitations to the past and the future actually increase
the stress of the moment because our experiences of similar stress shoot us
into anxious expectations of future consequences.
The problem with spending time in the
past or in the future is that you are not spending time in God’s reality; you
are living in your own past memories and in your future imaginations, which are
rarely, if ever, based on the present reality of God. Even when you are
remembering how he blessed you at one time or answered a prayer, that memory
usually pushes you into thoughts of the future, hoping that he will
bless you or answer your prayer in the same way again. If he didn’t bless you
or answer a prayer in the past, your future expectations are muted and maybe
even hopeless. Meanwhile, God is in the present moment saying, “Look at
me. I’m here. The past belongs to me and the future is actually none of your
business. Be with me here, now.”
So hard, isn’t it? It’s especially difficult
when the present moment is either extremely dull and lonely or else is full of
maximum stress. It’s so hard to stay and pay attention because for some
odd reason, when we spend time in the past or in the future we feel we’re more
in control. Or at least we feel there’s more potential for control if we can
get it all together and figure out exactly what should be happening and then
make it happen. Staying in the moment is an
act of supreme trust. It means that we give up control. We leave the past in his hands and assume
that he can and will create our future according to his word, not according to
our expectations.
We need to pay attention to the present
moment because that’s when and where he comes. Every moment is an advent of our
God and every moment we spend in being attentive is a season of preparation for
a full awareness of his presence. I totally believe that all of us continually
miss a multitude of quiet but astounding advents simply because they are quiet
and don’t fall within our set expectations. It’s difficult to hear a gentle
whisper when your mind and heart are filled with the raucous clamor of the past
and future, a clamor that forms your ideas of how God should come.
The times when I have learned best the
beautiful and powerful mystery of staying in the present moment have been
during some times of extreme pressure and stress where it seemed like there was
far too much to accomplish in the time given, where there was no leeway in
terms of deadlines and where it felt like everything could go
very badly. During these times, as long as I stayed in the present moment,
focused only on the immediate task at hand and spoke to the Lord only about
what I was doing in that moment, even if that task was something mundane, I was
fine. As soon as I allowed my mind to latch onto all that was left to do or
onto all the possibilities of disaster, everything inside of me would fly
apart. I would immediately become overwhelmed, filled with a need to get everything under my control. Then all my energy seemed to be sucked out of me.
When I stayed in the moment, not only
was I much more calm but I would continually be amazed at how orderly things progressed
and how minor miracles kept happening. The
present moment has its own particular power.
The Advent/Christmas season is chaotic
in itself and just because it’s the Christmas season it doesn’t mean that all
the other heavy expectations, wounds and struggles you’ve been dealing with can be put aside so you can concentrate on the demands of Christmas. Don’t
berate yourself or the world for the pressures and demands of Advent and
Christmas. Embrace them. Remember that it was into a world of wounded and
materialistic chaos that Jesus was born very unobtrusively and in a way that
met no one’s expectations. This Advent season, try to remember that every
moment is an Advent of our God and commit to trying to stay in the moment. Simply
focus on the task right before you in the moment while you watch and wait for
God.
And remember that God is in the present
moment also watching and waiting for the appearance of a notable person.
You.
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