From the Pastor's Desk | December 1, 2024

Lessons and Carols 

This Thursday, December 5, at 7:00 pm, we will host Lessons and Carols in the church.  This is a service of Scripture and song that dates back to the late 19th century and comes out of the Anglican/Episcopalian tradition.  It is one of my favorite things about the Advent season, so please join us!  There will be light refreshments and fellowship after.  It will truly lift your spirits and get you in the right mindset for Advent and Christmas.  

Capital Campaign

As of last weekend, we are done with the public phase of the capital campaign, thanks be to God!  We will certainly accept additional pledges, but we are now moving on to the design and, eventually, the construction phase.  This will take some time.  My thanks to Don Morgan who will be coming on as project manager in addition to Dave McCalvey and Gregg Alchin who will prove invaluable in their assistance to the project.   

Gospel Reflection

We begin the season of Advent where we left off in Ordinary Time.  At the end of the liturgical calendar, we contemplate those four last things - heaven, hell, death, and judgment.  We ended the last couple of weeks of Ordinary Time with apocalyptic foreshadowing culminating in the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.  On this first Sunday of Advent, we hear kind of the same apocalyptic foretelling of things to come, namely Christ’s second coming.  Our readings this week do not sound or feel like Christmas at all?  Why?  
I think the answer lies in the word advent itself.  What is it exactly that we are preparing for?  In four weeks, we will celebrate Christmas, the great solemnity of our faith celebrating the fact that God Himself took on human flesh and became man.  We celebrate the fact that God invaded the human realm to accomplish a mission - victory over sin and death.  But, that has already happened.  In a sense, we prepare by looking back at what God has already done.  So, what then are we preparing for here and now in the year 2024 (soon to be 2025)?    
The word advent means coming.  We are preparing for the reality of Christ’s second coming.  During the season of Advent, I am always reminded of St. Paul, formerly Saul.  Saul was an educated Jew, part of the upper class, and staunchly in opposition to the Christian sects.  He was so staunchly opposed to the Christians that he murdered many of them.  In Acts chapter nine, we read that Saul was “still breathing murderous threats.”  Something happened to Saul,
however. On his way toward Damascus, he was blinded by a great light and heard the Lord’s voice call out to him, “Saul, why do you persecute me?” For three days, he was blind as he stayed in Damascus aided by Ananias.  
I like to think that Saul’s blindness was the means by which he was given both the gift and the capacity to look back.  I have no idea what was going through Saul’s mind for those three days, but I like to think that he was given the gift of those three days of blindness to, paradoxically, look back and reflect.  In so doing, he converted his entire life toward Christ and the mission of Christianity.  He became one of the foundations of the Church.  
Similarly, we celebrate Christmas, a historical event that already took place, to give us the chance to look back and reflect on our own lives and what God has already done for us.  This helps us prepare for the advent, or the coming of Christ.  What struck me in the Gospel this week was Jesus’s line, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you like a trap” (Luke 21:34). Are we truly prepared for Christ?  Or, have we become complacent because of the long delay waiting for the promised second coming?  Are our hearts oriented toward Christ?  Or, are they oriented toward this world with all of its seductive pleasures and obstacles?  Do our lives - our daily living - reflect an orientation toward Christ or something or someone else altogether?  
Advent is a time of preparation.  It has both a sweetness and a penitential aspect.  So, let’s be serious and sober in our preparation.  God gives us, through His Church, this sacred time of preparation - a time to stop and look back at what God has already done for us and what we do or don’t do for God.  Let’s reorient our lives toward Christ through His Church.  Let’s reorient our daily living - our habits, our customs, our attitudes, our thoughts, our behaviors - toward Christ through His Church.  One day He will come again in all His glory.  Are we prepared?
Know of my prayers for you all! 
Fr. Ryan