Challenge of the Season
Church strives to keep Advent in focus
By Rayanne Damiano
When it comes to Advent and Christmas, I often feel like the stopped clock that gets to be right twice a day.
Advent gives all of us procrastinator types a rare opportunity to be the one who’s doing it right because we aren’t the first ones finished with our Christmas shopping, or because we’re decorating our trees and wrapping our gifts on Christmas Eve. Having long since rejected the idea that Christmas parties should ever be held weeks before Christmas, we find ourselves very much in synch with the Church’s observance of Advent, a time in which we are to defer the gratification of Christmas as we properly position ourselves in the spiritual mindset of the anniversary of Christ’s birth.
On the other side of Dec. 25, those of our sensibilities readily embrace the expanded celebration that stretches into January’s Epiphany. We’re not in any rush to take down the tree, and there are still gifts we didn’t give and cards we didn’t send well into mid-January. We kind of like those pretty Christmas lights on the house . . . heck, some of useven keep them up all year!
For procrastinators, it is truly blissful to know that our natural tendencies are, at long last, validated— we shouldn’t be rushing, we should be enjoying all that the season has to offer. The only thing amiss in this holiday utopia is that just about everybody else has a vastly different take on it.
For many, Christmas shopping begins in August and is wrapped up before Thanksgiving. From early November on, the malls and stores are filled with holiday decorations that eradicate any sense that Christmas is something we’re waiting for. By the time Christmas morning arrives, many of us have already celebrated with family, co-workers and friends, leaving the actual day of Christ’s birth somewhat anti-climactic on a grand excitement scale.
Even worse, the efficient people who always like to get things done and out of the way are often the ones who take the Christmas tree down Dec. 26, paying no mind to the 11 remaining days of Christmas.
It’s a bit ironic that as indignant individuals fight to keep the Christian symbols of Christmas in our public squares, despite the efforts of those who would like to reduce Christmas to a “winter holiday”, we are forgetting ourselves and the fact that we really shouldn’t be celebrating Christmas until Dec. 25.
What’s a countercultural Church to do?
Well, as most priests and pastoral ministers would agree, parishes have their work cut out for them just trying to get people to come to Mass in this whirlwind during these Advent weeks spent shopping, partying and decorating. Managing to have people focus on the meaning of Advent seems almost too much to hope for.
But still they try. And there are some success stories . . . little epiphanies (forgive the word) that will help us all to remember why we celebrate Christmas to begin with. A few of these standout moments emerged last weekend in my own parish, where my pastor, Father Robert J. Ascolese, challenged each parishioner with the question: Will you make some time this Advent for your faith?
To help us do just that, Father Ascolese had established special Sunday evening Holy Hours, in which members of our community were encouraged to come and spend an evening of silent meditation with the Lord. In addition, he had some 20 families in the parish host Advent gatherings in their homes, to which every member of the parish was invited.
And perhaps the most powerful way that Father “Bob” devised to nudge us all along into Advent was an ongoing activity with the children in the parish that will be conducted each week at Mass. After gathering all of the children to the front of the church, Father Bob showed them a basket of loose straw sitting next to an empty wooden crate. The crate, he told the children, will serve as the crèche that will be used for the Baby Jesus in the Living Nativity that will be portrayed on Christmas Eve. He invited each of the children who had done a good deed that week to take a straw from the basket and place it into the “crèche”. By their good deeds each week, the children will be able to make a nice soft bed for the Baby Jesus in time for Christmas.
I’m sure that many other parishes have developed equally creative ways to put Advent in the spotlight during these special weeks. And while there will likely never be a turning back of the early Christmas trends that have embedded themselves in our culture, we will all benefit by allowing ourselves the space and time to draw closer to our faith so that we might fully experience the true joy and peace of Christmas.
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law