| Dear Friends, |
Multitasking is the name of the game these days as we juggle the many commitments, people and projects that beckon for our attention. Certainly we can all feel crunched for time, especially this time of year, as we add holiday shopping, parties and elaborate meal preparation to the usual mix. Advent calls us to a time of waiting. But who has time to wait?
Almost paradoxically, amidst all of our hustle and bustle, we do quite a bit of waiting. We all wait in many ways throughout our day: we wait in traffic, we wait in line at the grocery store, we wait in doctors' offices, we wait on hold, we wait for a child to return home at night. If we stop to think about it, (maybe you'll have time when you're next waiting at a stop light!) we spend significant amounts of our time waiting. What have you been waiting for lately? Is it worth your wait?
Advent is a time to practice the art of waiting and live fully into the anticipation, the hope, the yearning and even the frustration that accompany waiting. Recently I attended a lecture along with many other Ascension parishioners in which the Catholic writer Gertrud Mueller Nelson spoke about the Liturgical Year and the need for us to reclaim advent waiting. She related Christmas to a cake baking in the oven. As you smell the wonderful smells dancing about the house, you eagerly anticipate your first bite. But even though you might want to dig in, you don't open up the oven, take a spoonful of dripping batter out of the pan and begin eating. No, you must wait until the cake is done baking and cooling and then you feast. So, too, with Christmas.; our waiting is essential for us to fully feast at Christmas.
Scripture can offer us help in learning how to wait this Advent for we are not alone in our waiting. Our lectionary readings provide many examples of waiting: Jerusalem is waiting for restoration, Mary and Elizabeth are waiting for their unborn children, John and his followers are waiting for the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. We are all waiting together for God. And God, too, is waiting for us.
So, as we journey into Advent, how will you wait? Many of the commitments that we have are important to God's work in the world and the waiting that we do in the midst of them is not entirely without value. Rather than try to clear every commitment so that I can sit and pray in a monastic, contemplative way which is just not what my life is about right now, I am going to use the times of waiting that are already part of my day to pray and to remind myself of what I am truly waiting for. And our Advent promise and Christmas joy in Christ our Lord is truly worth our wait.
May God bless our waiting this Advent.
Alicia Creyts
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Advent Waiting
How do we wait for God? We wait with patience. But patience does not mean passivity. Waiting patiently is not like waiting for the bus to come, the rain to stop, or the sun to rise. It is an active waiting in which we live the present moment to the full in order to find there the signs of the one we are waiting for.
Henri Nouwen
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| About Living the Word |
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LIVING THE WORD...opportunity, challenge, commitment
Opportunity: Living the Word is an opportunity for us to grow in our knowledge and love of God through the prayerful reading and study of the scriptures.
Challenge: Living the Word is a challenge to make more time for God in our daily lives. We challenge ourselves to come to Mass each week ready to hear God's Word proclaimed and to take that Word to the world!
Commitment: Living the Word invites us to commit ourselves to spending time with God's Word several times each week. As we read and reread these scriptures, think about the words we read, and bring these words to prayer, we encounter Christ, God's Living Word.
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