To be honest, Advent season had always come post-exam and coincided with vacation when the world was once again bright and peaceful. I was always 'ready' to be merry and happy for Christmas even without significant effort to go through the supposedly reflective and contemplative Advent Season.
But not this year. As Advent was coming near, I was reaching the edge of myself and I really did not expect much on this Christmas. 'I don't have time for you because my world is crumbling around me. Leave me alone.', I feel like being one of the people who dismissed a place for Mother Mary to give birth.
That bad.
I don't know if there is anybody else out there who is going through something like this, or maybe even worse. It's the point in life where I witness the immense desires and longings reach a point of eruption in me. It seemed helpless because I could not find inside me what is needed to fix the things I have made wrong.
Do not stop praying and hoping, even before the fact of our boundless human yearnings and the ocean of human defects. I hope this article could be useful to take back the hope and faith you have left and make good use of this momentous Advent season, because through this I finally came to a realization that this could be the Christmas when I really get to welcome my Savior. This loss and confusions that I am struggling with is the spiritual gift that assures me that the waiting for the Lord is all worthwhile.
The deepest meaning of Advent cannot be understood by anyone who has not experienced being terrified unto death about himself and his human prospects and likewise what is revealed within himself about the situation and constitution of mankind in general.
This entire message about God's coming, about the Day of Salvation, about redemption drawing near, will be merely divine game-playing or sentimental lyricism unless it is grounded upon two clear findings or fact.
The first finding : insight to, and alarm over, the powerlessness and futility of human life in relation to its ultimate meaning and fulfillment. That powerlessness and futility are both boundaries of our existence and are also consequences of sin. At the same time we are keenly aware that life does have an ultimate meaning and fulfillment.
The second finding : the promise of God to be on our side, to come to meet us. God resolved to raise the boundaries of our existence and to overcome the consequences of sin.
However, as a result, the basic condition of life always has an Advent dimension: boundaries, and hunger, and thirst, and lack of fulfillment, and promise, and movement toward one another. That means, however, that we basically remain without shelter, under way and open until the final encounter, with all the humble blessedness and painful pleasure of this openness.
Therefore, there is no interim finality and the attempt to create final conclusions is an old temptation of mankind. Hunger and thirst, and desert journeying, and the survival teamwork of mountaineers on a rope - these are the truth of our human condition. The promises given relate to this truth, not to arrogance and caprice. There really are promises given to this truth though, and we can and should rely upon them. The truth will make you free (Jn 8:32).
That truth is the essential theme of life. Everything else is only expression, result, application, consequence, testing and practice. May God help us to wake up to ourselves and in doing so, to move from ourselves toward him.
FATHER ALFRED DELP, SJ
I am so happy that the blog is once again mentally and spiritually healhty.
