Cleaning the House Up for the Holidays! A Reflection on Advent!

It is truly a holiday season.  From Thanksgiving jumping right into preparing for the Christmas season, I have many memories of the following situation; the house was in disarray and we were soon expecting the arrival of our relatives!  The entire household would go into full clean up mode.  My mom ran the show, while my dad steam cleaned the floors and organized the garage. My job was usually dusting, vacuuming the hallways and stairs, while also cleaning my room grudgingly.  The reason for all this cleaning?  We had been caught up in our own daily schedules up until this point and forgot to maintain our very house we lived in.

In certain way, I believe this is why the Church has the Advent Liturgical Season.  In a way it is to prepare us to celebrate the birth of Christ!  But like our house before the holidays, we too have strayed in our faith in some way or another.  Caught up in the business of our lives from work, school, sports, relationships, etc. that leaves us internally a mess and a necessary cleaning of our own interior house is in order.  The Church is asking of us to once again prepare our hearts to receive Christ in our lives.  In a way that’s what the Scriptures our saying.  The Lord is coming, make your preparations, don’t get caught off guard.

So, I encourage you during this Advent season, make some time to prepare our hearts to receive Christ; from the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to coming to daily Mass, to spending some time before the Blessed Sacrament in our chapel.  The Lord so desires to come into our hearts.  Let’s not have our house in such a mess that we will not have any room when He arrives. 

Desiring for Someone to Fight for Me!

When I was growing up we had a forest preserve close to my house.  My friends and I would pull out some hammer & nails, blocks of wood, and build some forts and cause trouble.  One day my dad curiously asked to see where I was spending all my time.  So I took my dad down into the forest preserve.  The one day I decided to show my dad where I was spending all my time was the same day, and only day I could ever recall, when there was a failed bank robbery and a police chase that ended up near our house. 

As we were in the woods, we could hear the sirens from a distance.  Soon those sirens ended up right outside the tree line of the forest preserve.  I told my dad that we should leave/run, but my dad not wanting to be confused with the chase told me to stand still.  All of a sudden the bank robber came running into the woods.  Actually he was running right toward us without seeing us.  All of sudden as he got close, my dad placed himself between me and the bank robber. When the bank robber saw my dad and I, he turned and ran in a different direction.

It was confirmed, that which I already known, my dad was willing to fight for me!  I think this longing, this desire for someone to fight for us, can be found in all our aspects of life!  We seek it from our teachers when we were kids; if we are struggling we wanted a teacher that would work with us to succeed.  We seek it in our coaches; if we are struggling we want a coach to stick by our side even when we aren't playing our best game.   We desire it in our friends; that they would stick up for us when others are saying bad things about us.  We desire it from are bosses; that they will defend our work.  We desire it from our family and close loved ones.  And we even desire it from our politicians.  If we looked at how people voted in this past election, we can see why people voted for their candidate!  Their vote was based on their belief that the candidate would best fight for their rights!

It's no difference in our faith.  We desire for a God who will fight for us!  And yet, how many people out there, including ourselves, may feel that God is distant?  From a loss of a loved one, to a possible terminal diagnosis, to a loss of a job, or even brokenness within our family.  Do we acknowledge God's presence in our life?  Do we see God fighting for us? 

This is why it is so important that the Church celebrates every year, which we celebrated this past weekend, the Solemnity of Christ the King!  Getting past our own misconceptions of modern day monarchies; the role of the king was not to be separated from the people, but someone who fought for his people!  King Saul and King David, after they were anointed by Samuel as king of Israel, they went off to battle to fight Israel's enemy.  We too have a King willing to fight for us.  All we need to do is look at Jesus Christ on the Cross.  Christ enters into our battles of loneliness, doubt, despair, and even death to bring us into his Kingdom.  How great it is that we have a King who is willing to fight for you and me!

We Are an Anxious People!

It’s amazing how anxious and fearful we can become!  Specifically, in the past few weeks, I heard from numerous people about how concerned, anxious, and afraid prior and post presidential election.  In the previous weeks, I also heard from many people on how anxious they were about Game 7 of the world series, and how they couldn’t even watch the game because it was so intense.  And that’s just from politics and sports, this doesn’t even begin to account for the anxiety and fears that come from our daily lives and responsibilities from family, work, school, our own health and well being. 

If were to just take a step back and look at our lives, we could say that humanity overall seems to be anxious and fearful!  The funny thing if you read the Bible which has stories that go as far back as 5,000 + years, not much has changed.  It’s no wonder, the main message from God throughout the Scriptures is “Do not be Afraid” and “Peace, be with you!” We need to be constantly comforted, constantly reassured that everything is going to be ok. 

From the Gospel, this weekend, you can sense the anxiety and fear rise once again.  Jesus begins to tell the Jews about the upcoming destruction of their temple; that which is the center of their worship, faith, and life!  And yet, Jesus seems un-phased as he proclaims the future collapses of kingdoms and nations.  Why? 

I think because Christ is trying to reveal something deeper about our faith.  Our life is more than buildings, more than politics, or even sports!  Our life is about relationship with the Lord and that can be never taken away!  Jesus came into the world to take on our greatest fear and greatest anxiety, which can be found in death.  He doesn’t run away from it, but transforms it!  So, if you are finding yourself in fear or anxiety, do not put your hopes in worldly things that will fail us and fade away.  Place your hopes in the one who will never leave us, even on the cross; place your hopes in Jesus Christ!