Advent: It’s Wholly Counter-Cultural Reality

Quietly competing with the banal and boring commercialism of Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays extended sales is another invitation. But it cannot be heard outside in the streets or while listening to babble. Instead we must silence all the shouts of the marketplace to listen to another voice…more like a whisper. This is a different kind of celebration –quieter, more intimate…a refuge. Lighting our Advent candles in hope, not naive optimism but the Hope that derives from faith.

I know, the pressure to buy, buy, BUY! is palpable…whether a new tree, more and better decorations, or new clothes. The inhenent busyness of explicit promises “This year, I’ll have cards done and gifts bought by the second week in December!”

Or maybe Christmas evokes memories and images that sadden or anger at all that Christmas signifies And so, we lash out at those closest to us, ignoring the fact that anger and rage provide fuel to our demonic enemies.

But if we reject all that trash and recollect ourselves, we can hear the whispered command:

“Don’t waste these precious days!“

It’s Advent

Advent: it’s wholly counter-cultural reality is conveyed by the penitential colors of the liturgical churches. Enter a Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, Lutheran or Oriental Orthodox daily or Sunday service and the Lenten-like vestments of priests and altars bring us to a different world. When we listen to the readings, our minds can’t help but quiet while we consider what is happening. Especially if we decide to engage in the penitential practices.

Penitiential practices.

You mean fasting?

It’s almost Christmas, why should we fast?

Our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters began their preparation for receiving the Christ Child on November 16th, the day after the feast of Saint Philip. Fasting from meat, fish, oil and dairy products, the “little Lent” can empty minds, hearts and bellies sufficiently to behold the miracle unfolding before us. Some sugges that our Roman church restore the ancient practice of the advent fasting, penance and almsgiving.

A few years ago, I reinstituted bread and water fasts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. And recently a nine-day bread and water fast. {Actually, eight and a half]. And so I can attest to the lengthy list of fasting’s beneficial physical and spritiual effects. But the poet Rumi speaks to its essence

There’s a hidden sweetness
in the stomach’s emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less.
If the sound box is stuffed
full of anything, no music.

If the brain and the belly
are burning clean with fasting,
every moment a new song
comes out of the fire…

A table descends to your
tent, Jesus’s table.
Expect to see it, when you
fast, this table spread with
other food better than the
broth of cabbages. READ MORE

That is after all, what we seek, isn’t it?

Jesus’s table.

Adventus: Coming, arrival.

The Office Readings for Wednesday of the first week of Advent, features an excerpt from a sermone of Saint Bernard, abbott. The saint writes of the third coming of Christ. “We know that the coming of the Lord is threefold: the third coming is between the other two and it is not visible in the way they are. At his first coming the Lord was seen on earth and lived among men, who saw him and hated him. At his last coming All flesh shall see the salvation of our God, and They shall look on him whom they have pierced. In the middle, the hidden coming, only the chosen see him, and they see him within themselves; and so their souls are saved. The first coming was in flesh and weakness, the middle coming is in spirit and power, and the final coming will be in glory and majesty,” writes the saint.

What is the “middle coming in spirit and power?”

Saint Bernard explains, “This middle coming is like a road that leads from the first coming to the last. At the first, Christ was our redemption; at the last, he will become manifest as our life; but in this middle way he is our rest and our consolation.  If you think that I am inventing what I am saying about the middle coming, listen to the Lord himself: If anyone loves me, he will keep my words, and the Father will love him, and we shall come to him.…”

So much conspires against our finding this “middle coming.” Influencers compete for our attention and much more. To buy stuff, yes, of course, but inside the church to sell their opinion…about well everything. Recent Vatican decisions have exacerbated the anti-pope frenzy to persuade Catholics of their ‘rightwous disobedience.‘

If these men are right, is this response of theirs proper?

Can disobedience be righteous?

“If anyone loves me he will keep my word….”

When you’re full of food and drink,
Satan sits where your
spirit should, an ugly metal
statue in place of the Kaaba.

When you fast, good habits gather
like friends who want to help.

Fasting is Solomon’s ring.
Don’t give it to some illusion
and lose your power.

But even if you’ve lost all
will and control, they come
back when you fast,
like soldiers appearing out
of the ground, pennants
flying above them.

A table descends to your
tent, Jesus’s table.
Expect to see it, when you
fast, this table spread with
other food better than the
broth of cabbages.

Rumi