Yesterday's blogger, Barbara Kennedy, who has great radar for all things inspirational, spotted this in a Catholic Church Bulletin. I don't think it matters what your denomenation is, there's a great message here!
Dear Friends in the Lord,
If your house isn’t decorated for Christmas yet, don’t worry. You’re in good company: the Roman Catholic Church! As you saw when you entered the church today, the simplicity or our Advent environment stands in stark contrast to the extravagance of the shops and malls. The Church, of course, doesn’t follow the Target or Macy’s holiday calendar; we have a much more ancient wisdom that says these next four weeks are for restraint, for quiet waiting, for reflecting, for anticipating the joys of the coming of Jesus into our lives.
So what’s so important about Advent? I think most people understand Advent’s grace even before they think about it. How many of us have said, “Things are incredibly busy right now… There’s too much to do… Christmas is so commercialized… I wish there was a different way to celebrate it.” Sometimes we’ve heard so many Christmas Carols by the first week of December that by Christmas Day we want to unplug the radio!
We have a human and spiritual need to be connected to the ageless Source of life and love–-in the still December nights--to hear once again the quiet voice of a God who loves us beyond all our imagining.
Yet all the shopping, decorating and partying can keep us from the very reason we’re celebrating Christmas in the first place. Advent is a “big deal” for us because it calls us to be still and listen.
So although it’s counter-cultural to say this, why not slow down and do a little less this Advent? Find the spiritual side of these December days. I learned long ago that I personally must do that if I am to have anything at all to give you as a pastor when Christmas finally arrives. At the risk of seeming a big Scrooge, I will politely decline the many kind invitations to parties and socials during Advent.
The best spiritual direction I can offer you is to consider doing the same.
And when Christmas finally comes, we’ll once again find ourselves out-of-step with the world around us: We’ll just be putting up the decorations, singing carols for the first time and having our Christmas parties while our neighbors will already be recycling their trees and the stores will have moved on to the next marketable holiday. But our Christmas will be the richer for having waited, our grasp of the mystery of the Incarnation more profound for having entered into the silence.
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