1st Advent

It’s the hap-happiest time of the year. Ready or not, folks, we have entered a new season. Since Thanksgiving has passed, we are now in the midst of the Christmas season. We have entered that shopping, gift wrapping, card writing, decorating, cooking, baking, party, and pageants season. Hopefully, all the bustle and excitement brings back happy memories and prepares us for wonderful memory-making this year.

We all have high expectations for the upcoming holiday season. All our holiday preparations can become a bit overwhelming, though. It is especially so since we missed most of Christmas last year because of the pandemic. This year we can feel more pressure to make this Christmas very special. We need to make sure we don’t let this year’s preparations overwhelm us.

For the Church, we won’t celebrate the Christmas season until after the holiday. Still today, we too begin a new season, the Advent Season. Advent is also a season of preparation. During these weeks leading up to Christmas, we can’t let our busyness prevent us from being vigilant for the real reason for the season, the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. We must be watchful to celebrate not only his entrance into history two thousand years ago but his second coming at the end of time and Christ’s entrance into our hearts again this year.

How do we practice vigilance for Jesus’ coming? We do that by deepening our sense of gratitude. Gratitude is making an effort to recognize and appreciate the presence of goodness in our lives. It is giving thanks to God for God’s love and compassion that we experience every day.

Still, this can be a season when it is difficult to show gratitude because there are so many temptations to show ingratitude. Ingratitude is a temptation this time of year because we have unrealistic expectations of other people. We all want a perfect Christmas. We want our holiday to measure up against the ones we see in commercials and on television. We want our Christmas to be full of beaming faces, wonderful gifts, and maybe just a little snow. When all our intended ingredients don’t mix, we feel cheated and ungrateful.

Entitlement also causes ingratitude. We have the feeling others owe us a perfect Christmas. This year that is a severe hazard because we might feel cheated of so much these past two years. Since we have missed out on so much, we expect more this year.

Ingratitude comes from our feelings of pride. We believe we are the cause of all our success and can go it alone, accomplish everything by ourselves. Feelings of woundedness also cause ingratitude. We are attached to our hurts, so they become the center of our focus, and we refuse to see beyond them to a fuller life. Sloth or just plain lazy thinking can cause ingratitude. When we don’t take any time to consider our situation and just let life flow by, we miss out on being grateful. We can be selfish and think only about ourselves, so we are ungrateful.

Being grateful helps us to be vigilant for God. If we look around at our world and our lives to find good, we will recognize it more and more. We become more aware of what is happening in our lives and surroundings. Psychologists at UCLA did a study. They divided an assembly of subjects into two groups. The first group they asked to keep a log of things they were grateful for every day. The other they asked to tabulate things that annoyed them. Researchers found as the weeks went on, both groups wrote longer and longer journal entries. People tend to find what they are looking for in their lives. The more vigilant we are for the presence of goodness, the more we will discover.

How do we make this Advent Season one where we are more vigilant and grow in gratitude? There are three steps. They might seem obvious to us, but they can be challenging ones. First, be on the lookout for things for which to be appreciative. They aren’t always apparent to us as we hurry through the day. We can overlook them very easily. At the end of your day, take five to six minutes to reflect on it and try to see occurrences for which you are most appreciative. Maybe write them in a notebook as they did in the UCLA study.

You’ll undoubtedly recall some instances where you didn’t show appreciation and should have done so. Trying to remember what to be grateful for is a good Examen of Conscience. Rather than looking to find fault with ourselves, we look for positive things. In the process, we see where we could have been more loving and compassionate and can ask forgiveness from God.

Next, turn from recalling your gifts to considering the giver of gifts. Recognizing all the blessings of our day come from God will help you develop a closer relationship with the giver of gifts. You will grow in your love for God the Father.

Growing in gratitude will help you share gratitude. This summer, we heard so many sad stories about service workers being abused and maltreated by customers. People were being unrealistically demanding and oblivious to workers overloaded because of a shortage of help. When we have a grateful attitude, it helps us be patient with others and to show appreciation to them.

As we begin Advent, we also start a new liturgical year. This year we read from the Gospel of Luke. In his gospel, you will notice Luke is especially aware of how Jesus reached out to the suffering and poor. In today’s reading from Luke, Jesus wants to calm the fears of his Apostles.

As he enters Jerusalem, Jesus and the apostles look down on the city and its magnificent Temple. Jesus predicts in a short time; the Temple will be destroyed. The apostles believe Jesus refers to the Jewish Temple building, which the Romans destroyed shortly after Jesus’ lifetime. The thought of the destruction of the Jewish Temple causes the apostles to become upset. The Jews of Jesus’ day believed the Temple was God’s dwelling among them. Where could they worship God if the Temple was no longer in existence, the disciples thought.

Jesus wants his followers to avoid confusing faith with a building. A building or a place cannot confine God. Jesus is God’s Temple. Jesus knows he is going to Jerusalem to experience his passion, death, and resurrection. The religious authorities will try to destroy Jesus, God’s Temple. To prepare the apostles for the shock, Jesus says:

[W]hen these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads

because your redemption is close at hand.

And,

“Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations

that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Jesus knows that we can lose sight of God’s blessings when we face big problems. He knew that the apostles would tend to scatter once he left their presence. Jesus doesn’t want them to cut and run but to have faith, resist fear, be vigilant, pray, and believe Jesus is standing by their side.

When we face big problems, our world seems to be coming apart, and we tend to lose sight of God’s blessings. We feel completely overwhelmed by our circumstances. One of the most popular Christmas films is “It’s A Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart, who plays the main character, George Bailey. Bailey has spent his life being a caring businessman supporting his community when suddenly, just before Christmas, he is faced with having to pay off a large debt. Bailey can see no way of satisfying the debt and believes he, his family, and the community face ruin. He contemplates suicide but is interrupted by his guardian angel Clarence. Clarence shows George the world would be much bleaker if he had never lived. George returns home to find his grateful family and community rallying around to help him.

Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to lose faith in the face of insurmountable problems. Jesus wants to model for us how to react when all feels lost. Remember, Jesus, understands our problems because he was 100% human. He experienced the betrayal of Judas, a close friend, the abandonment by the other apostles, being taunted by the crowds, and unfairly judged by Pilate and the religious authorities.

When we feel overwhelmed, we can call on Jesus. Jesus shows us how to stand firm because God will redeem our situation just as God redeemed Jesus and raised him from the dead. God will bring good out of a challenging situation. God will use times of trouble to change us and transform our character. God will mend and mold us into more worthy people. God will help us to use our current concerns to make future ones less troubling.

To have faith means we trust God to accompany us when times are difficult. Faith is being grateful to God in advance even when we can’t see our final destination. Faith is surrendering our anxiety to God, slowing down, and refusing to lose sight of gratitude for God’s love. Faith is always being grateful no matter the circumstances.

As you begin the Advent season and start your preparations for Christmas, make growing in gratitude your most important one. Becoming more aware of God’s goodness in your life will give rebirth to your relationship with Jesus and help it grow throughout this new year of grace.