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November 26, 2007

Rector's Reflections for Advent

Sunday, December 2, will be the start of a new church year and the beginning of the season of Advent. ADVENT, the four weeks leading up to Christmas, is a season of expectation, of a waiting that is both joyous and solemn. It is a time when we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth with our ‘hearts filled with praise.’ It is not easy to be mindful of the solemnity of Advent when all around us the message of Christmas seems to have little to do with the birth of the only begotten Son of God. The following poem says it better than I ever could. Happy Advent!
Fr. Mike

‘TWAS THE BEGINNING OF ADVENT

‘Twas the beginning of Advent and all through the Church, Our hope was all dying, we’d given up the search. It wasn’t so much that Christ wasn’t invited, but after 2,000 plus years we were no longer excited.

Oh, we knew what was coming, no doubt about that. And that was the trouble—it was all ‘old hat.’ November brought the first of an unending series of pains, With carefully orchestrated advertising campaigns.

There were gadgets and dolls and all sorts of toys. Enough to seduce even the most devout girls and boys. Unfortunately, it seemed, no one was completely exempt from this seasonal virus that did all of us tempt.

The priests and prophets and certainly the kings were all so consumed with the desire for “things!” It was rare, if at all, that you’d hear of the reason for the origin of this holy-day season.

A baby, it seems, once had been born in the Mid-East somewhere on that first holy day morn. But what does that mean for folks like us, who’ve lost ourselves in the hoopla and fuss?

Can we open our eyes and open our ears? Can we find him again after all of these years? Will this year be different from all of the rest? Will we be able to offer him all of our best?