Christ Amidst the Deadlines | 2nd Sunday of Advent | Sunday Reflection

Advent brings to the Church a time of waiting and anticipation. Coupled with the arrival of the winter season, it fosters within the Christian soul a sense of greater quiet and peace, just like the falling snow seems to cloak the world in a blanket of silence. But at the seminary, the weeks between our return from Thanksgiving break and the end of the semester are some of the busiest of the entire year. Papers are coming due. Exams are on the horizon. Special events like Lessons & Carols and Deacons Night fill our evenings. Just when we would like to slow down and savor the season, the pace of life accelerates. The phenomenon of holiday busyness is hardly unique to the seminary. Many people experience these days as a time of increased stress and high expectations. How can we find Christ present amidst the deadlines?

Last Sunday, Jesus said “In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark…So it will be also at the coming of the Son of Man.” In other words, all the normal activities of life and their demands don’t stop until Christ’s coming. Some people will be taken by surprise because they are not ready. In the very midst of ordinary life, we have to learn to stay vigilant and be prepared. Far from pursuing a flight from our daily obligations, this entails the understanding that the present life is rich in significance. In our own time and place, the kingdom of God is growing, albeit in a hidden manner. Christ speaks of this kingdom as a small seed or like crops buried deep in the soil, slowly maturing unseen. Any endeavor which welcomes the truth and fosters love in some manner prepares the way for this kingdom’s coming. Studies, projects, and papers are all implicated here. The many holiday gatherings in our lives also offer an opportunity to follow St. Paul’s counsel in this Sunday’s Second Reading: “Welcome one another, then, as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God.” The world around us can either be a distraction or an opportunity, depending on our ability to see and seize the moments of grace continually passing by. This is a spiritual skill which we can grow better at with practice.

The urgency we feel at this time of year doesn’t need to be in competition with the Advent spirit of vigilance. It is precisely a sense of urgency which John the Baptist is trying to foster in his hearers in the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Advent. He rebukes the Pharisees who are coming to him by reminding them that they are under a deadline to produce the good fruits of repentance. “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance…Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

God has given each of us a deadline. At some point, we will all run out of time. We don’t know when that will be, and so we strive to make the most of today, vigilant for those opportunities to build up the reign of Christ within and around us.