PROMISES FulFILLED
Dear Friends in Christ,
We are in the final days approaching Christmas. This bulletin and letter span the fourth Sunday in Advent and the Christmas Feast. So, I am not quite sure if I should say: Happy Advent or Merry Christmas!
It strikes me that each year we prepare for the coming of the Messiah for about a month. Advent is that season of preparation. The chosen one, Mother Mary, spent nine months preparing to welcome her son. In fact, Mary’s whole life and even her Immaculate Conception were aimed at preparing her heart for her unique and singular role. Stepping back, the chosen people, Israel, had been undergoing preparation and foreshadowing for many centuries. In fact, God was preparing to send his Son even as Adam and Eve fell away in the Garden. (see Gn 3:15). Jesus is the long-desired one. (Great tune!)
Preparation is part of what it means to be human. We are on the road, but we are not there quite yet. We are in process, hopefully progressing - growing and developing - as we journey to our true home in heaven. But here on the road, we can get sidetracked or waylaid. Many detours and challenges await. And often as well, friends assist to speed us along or offer us hospitality when we are in need. Such is the road in this life. One of the important virtues to cultivate is hope. This Advent we have been focused on how to cultivate and live in hope.
Hope looks forward to the challenging good with confidence and says we can get there. Hope believes that despite the obstacles, we will arrive in God’s time to our destination. Hope is a gift or grace from God that we can cultivate and grow in us. One of the three great theological virtues. Virtue is a key part of our character, who we are becoming, as we make this journey. Josef Pieper Faith, Hope, Love reminds us that “Virtue is the ultimum potentiae, the most man can be. It is the realization of man’s potentiality for being.” Perhaps it is time once again to focus on virtue, on growing and building our character. Pieper notes too that “Hope is a steadfast turning toward the true fulfillment of man’s nature…. Hope, like love, is one of the very simple, primordial dispositions of the living person. In hope, man reaches “with restless heart,” with confidence and patient expectation, toward the bonum arduum futurum, toward the arduous ‘not yet’ of fulfillment, whether natural or supernatural,” (99-100). Those words have meant a lot to me this past month.
Magnanimity and humility are two virtues ordered to hope. Magnanimity is the aspiration of the spirit to remarkable things; the virtue that helps us to embrace the greater possibility of the human potentiality for being. Humility keeps us close to God, depending on him as faithful not petulant children, not overconfident in our own capacities but steadfastly clinging to the one who sets us free.
These last days of Advent move us toward fulfillment. This Sunday in our Gospel, (see Mt 1:18-24) Joseph has reservations but he receives the assurance of the angel and then acts immediately, taking Mary into his home. Despite the surprising and unusual details surrounding Mary’s pregnancy, Joseph steps forward in hope, acting with confidence and trust.
And in our Christmas Gospel (Lk 2:1-14) we listen again to the account of the shepherds, those on the fringes of society, sleeping with the sheep, not welcomed into polite company, who became the ones who first welcomed Emmanuel - God with us. They are a reminder to us that being little, childlike, and humble, make us better disposed to hear and respond to God’s invitation in hope. Isn’t it the powerful who often have more important things to do? (But now we are looking ahead to Herod’s story as compared to the Magi; stay tuned for that!)
God bless you now and always. May this Christmas bring you and your family much hope, peace, joy, and love! I pray the God of Hope may be with you.
Your pastor,
Fr. Joel
