A Cautionary Second Sunday of Advent Thought About Last Chances to Start the Week Off Right

Warning! The first week of Advent just passed you by!

I don't know about you, but once All Saints Day arrives, the rest of the year rockets by. All Saints, All Souls...Thanksgiving...Advent...Christmas: Some years it feels like it all comes and goes in one explosive bullet of time shot out of a high-caliber rifle. With that in mind we pass on these cautionary thoughts to you who most intensely feel the fleeting nature of time as the end of 2015 approaches.

Just a suggestion, but as the calendar year draws to a close, try to remember and really focus on the fact that it's the beginning of the Church's Liturgical Year. It's not an instant cure for time getting away from you, but I've found it helps. Beginnings typically emerge like a baby from the womb, which in most cases doesn't happen in a heart-beat, as those of you who've had children know so well. 

Or maybe think of beginnings as starting up the mountain on a hike. It takes time to uncork yourself, to get those legs churning, to hit your stride. Coming down the other side, of course, you just can't help picking up speed until you land at the base, the end of your journey.

But ever more dramatically now, we present our cautionary thoughts on this Second Sunday of Advent. Here's the way it strikes me each year:

It’s our last chance to grab the horns of this raging end-of-year-Advent-December bull that’s bucking and running towards the New Year; our last chance to recollect ourselves and remind ourselves that the first week of Advent is over and if we don’t keep our minds and hearts on the matter, Advent will slip by without any sense of penance and preparation; our last chance to try to slow down the rush to Christmas that will find us (if we let it) missing all the anticipation, the eager looking forward.

Exacerbating this natural rush of time is the stark fact that we’re adults, no longer children; older now, "mature," and too busy and occupied with “important” matters to fuss over the coming of Christmas. And if your own children are mostly grown-up, adults themselves, there’s likely no more Advent calendar, one of those daily observances that helped keep us reined into this holy season, rather than scattered about with our willy-nilly cares and concerns. 

So on this Last-Chance Second Sunday of Advent, how about we stand up to be counted amongst those of all ages: eager faces and wondrous eyes reflecting the lights and shiny decorations springing up around us; biding our time, saying our special Advent prayers; offering up our acts of charity for others, and our mortifications in reparation for sin and for the Holy Souls. All of this will raise our fallen human nature from the depths of sin, preparing our hearts for the coming of the Baby Jesus on Christmas Day. Yes, that's what we'll do starting this very moment!

And to help us - right now - to rein in galloping time, to slow ourselves down, to recollect ourselves, let's take a few minutes to listen to "Veni, Veni Emmanuel." It's the Latin version of  "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," which we heard last week. It will help us remember that we're in the midst of this special Holy Season, a Season bursting with special graces from God. Cooperating with His Grace, we hope to fully prepare our minds, our hearts and our souls to welcome His Son on Christmas Day.

Diving Infant of Bethlehem, come and take birth in our hearts!