The hour for watching, for salvation is nearer.

ener­al­ly, I am much relieved when it is Jan­u­ary 2. More and more as I grow old­er, the hol­i­days seem to me to be some­thing to have over. This is because they have become a fre­net­ic rush of activ­i­ty that there is nev­er enough time to get done: stuff to buy; stuff to cook; places to be; traf­fic to fight and dri­vers to curse; lines of crazed shop­pers to endure, as though I should be there myself; music to roll my tired and ticked off eyes at and say, “If I hear that stu­pid Feliz Navi­dad just one more time!” dec­o­ra­tions of stuff to put up; a cat to con­trol when, under an impulse not to be denied, he jumps into the tree as one pos­sessed and drags tin­sel from room to room. When it is Jan­u­ary 2 I can stop; when it is Jan­u­ary 2 I can rest.

QUI GEMIT IN EXSILIO

In the Gospel read­ing for the first Sun­day of Advent, Jesus refers to a spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­pline I sel­dom hear any­one talk about: “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the com­ing of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eat­ing and drink­ing, mar­ry­ing and giv­ing in mar­riage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the com­ing of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be tak­en, and the oth­er left. Two women shall be grind­ing at the mill; the one shall be tak­en, and the oth­er left. Watch there­fore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” (Matt. 24:37–42)

Sacred Scrip­ture is full of ref­er­ences to the dis­ci­pline of “watch­ing”:  “Blessed is the man that heareth me, watch­ing dai­ly at my gates, wait­ing at the posts of my doors” (Prov. 8:34); “What I say unto you, I say unto all: Watch” (Mark 13:37); “Blessed are those ser­vants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watch­ing” (Luke 12:37); “But in all things approv­ing our­selves as the min­is­ters of God, in much patience, in afflic­tions, in neces­si­ties, in dis­tress­es, in stripes, in impris­on­ments, in tumults, in labours, in watch­ings, in fast­ings” (2 Cor. 6:4–5); “Pray always with all prayer and sup­pli­ca­tion in the Spir­it, and watch there­un­to with all per­se­ver­ance” (Eph. 6:18).

To “watch” means more than to stare or look; watch­ing actu­al­ly refers to the dis­ci­pline of stay­ing up all night, typ­i­cal­ly in prayer, wait­ing, and cau­tion. The Bible con­stant­ly warns us against the dan­ger of being found asleep. “Be sober, be vig­i­lant; because your adver­sary the dev­il, as a roar­ing lion, walketh about, seek­ing whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8) But while Peter warns us to con­stant­ly be on the alert for the attacks of the dev­il, he also means for us to be watch­ful for the promised com­ing of the Lord: “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eter­nal glo­ry by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suf­fered a while, make you per­fect, sta­b­lish, strength­en, set­tle you” (1 Pet. 5:10). I used to imag­ine that if I stayed up all night on Christ­mas Eve, I would catch San­ta Claus when he showed up. My par­ents spoiled it by telling me he would not come unless I were asleep. But we should have such antic­i­pa­tion with Christ—not to fall asleep, lest we miss Him when He comes.

It is the pur­pose of Advent to get us to stop and look and wait. It is the pur­pose of Advent to remind us that Christ has come and is com­ing again and that we should watch for Him in eager antic­i­pa­tion. And that we should be watch­ful, as well, of our own sin­ful­ness, and repent. To pre­pare the way of the Lord means to pre­pare our ways for the Lord.

PRIVATUS DEI FILIO

But how do we do that when there is so much oth­er stuff to do and we are busy?

Con­sid­er­ing my own habits, I am per­haps not the best per­son to be asked that ques­tion, or to answer it. But maybe an obser­va­tion would help: There has not been a gen­er­a­tion that has not felt itself too busy for watch­ing. If Christ told His dis­ci­ples to watch, it was because they need­ed to be told. Christ tells us the same thing He told them; He does not say, Well, this gen­er­a­tion is more bur­dened than before, there­fore it can be excused in its busy­ness. If we think the dis­ci­ples were some­how dif­fer­ent in their tat­tered robes and lux­u­ri­ous free­dom for spir­i­tu­al things, we are telling our­selves a lie.

My con­vic­tion is—and I say this as much to myself—that our lives are busy and full of things because we have made them busy and full of things. We have filled up our retail out­lets and homes and crowd­ed out the Lord; and then we com­plain that we have no time for Him, no time to stop, no time to watch. We have done that. And if we have done that, we can resist that.

It was appalling when crowds gath­ered out­side stores for their open­ing on Black Fri­day, and then pushed over each oth­er to get in; it was appalling when two women were filmed beat­ing each oth­er up over who knows what. The rea­son these things hap­pen is because our cul­ture val­ues mate­r­i­al things over spir­i­tu­al ones. But even those of us who resist such a pitch of mad­ness can still stop and con­sid­er to what extent Advent and Christ­mas have become a list of things for us to buy and things for us to do. The rea­son we give gifts at Christmas—or at least the rea­son we should—is not to grow in mate­r­i­al wealth but to sym­bol­ize the gifts the wise men brought Christ.

Per­haps one way to declare our free­dom is to give no one more than three gifts and to exchange them on Epiphany. If we did that, we could hold off on putting up any dec­o­ra­tions until Christ­mas Eve, buy all our gifts after Jan­u­ary 1 when the stores are emp­ty, exchange them on Jan­u­ary 6, and spend Advent properly—in prayer, in repen­tance, fast­ing, and in watch­ing.

It is a thought I doubt will catch on.

VENI! VENI!

Once Israel was in exile, and it is still in exile. In its exile it longed for Immanuel—the pres­ence, not of a king, not even of a home­land, but of God. For the only real exile is exile from God.

And so the expe­ri­ence of sal­va­tion is main­ly an expe­ri­ence of wait­ing. And the dis­ci­pline of watch­ing refo­cus­es us on what we real­ly lack. The dis­ci­pline of repen­tance refo­cus­es us on who we real­ly are. The dis­ci­pline of prayer refo­cus­es us on who we are meant to be and to whom we real­ly belong. We do not real­ly need to fill our homes with things, if it is our souls that are emp­ty. We do not real­ly need to dec­o­rate our homes with frip­pery, if it is our God we need to adorn.

He came and He is com­ing again and tru­ly we long for Him and for no oth­er. If He were com­ing tonight, would you not drop all else and rush out to meet Him with joy? But would you not want to have been pre­pared of heart first?

Veni! veni!