Making Our Lists

Santa has made his annual appearance at the end of the Macy’s Day Parade and can be found in malls throughout the country.  Children are responding by making their lists and counting the days until that wonderful moment when they’ll run to the tree and start opening their gifts.

They make their lists, and they wait.  We can take a cue from the children this first week of Advent.  We have no choice but to wait.  We would do well to make our lists.

We have to wait.  Today’s readings are all about waiting. After 32 chapters of gloom and doom, oncoming punishment through exile due to their infidelity to God, the people Jeremiah addresses are told not to despair, the days are coming when God would fulfill the promises he made to the house of Israel and Judah.  He will raise up a just shoot from the tree of David.  The people had only to wait for that day.

 “Wait for the Day of the Lord with increased love for one another,” Paul tells the Thessalonians in one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture, our second reading.  “Wait for the Lord in a way that is pleasing to God by living out the instructions you have received,” Paul tells them.

In the apocalyptical section of Luke Jesus instills a greater urgency into preparing for the Day of the Lord by using frightening symbolism to move the people into action during this period of waiting.  The people to whom Luke’s Gospel was addressed had to be made to understand the concept of the delay in the Parousia, the final coming of the Lord.  Just because the end did not come when they expected it, the people should not let their guard down. “Be vigilant at all times,” the Lord says, “and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man."

Advent is a period of waiting.  But that doesn’t mean that we should waste our time.  We are not sitting in a doctor’s office leafing through eight month old magazines that we would never subscribe to.  The waiting that takes place during Advent is meant to be productive. We are waiting for our final union with God, be it at the end of time or the end of our own personal time.  We can’t sit back and wait.  We have to prepare.

We can take a clue from the children regarding one of the things we can do while we are waiting.  We should make out our lists.  Perhaps we can make out a list of that which is precious to us, and then thank God for these gifts.  Perhaps we can make out a list of that which we really need, and petition God to hear our prayers.  As an Advent prayer, why don’t you and I just take some time to make out a list or two.

Let’s start out by making a list together, you and I, right here and right now.  Let’s list that which is sacred to us all.  God knows this is a list we need.  We hear about art exhibits that blaspheme our beliefs, the motion pictures that  toy with perversity, graves are routinely desecrated, and we cry out, “Is nothing sacred, anymore?”

Well, there are a lot of things that are sacred.  Let’s put these on our list.  What is sacred to us, Catholic Christians?

Perhaps fundamental to what we hold as sacred is human life.  Let’s put human life on our list.  At every stage of growth, decline and demise on the path to eternal life, human life is sacred.  The shock that we register at the wanton destruction of human life on our planet demonstrates the respect we have for life.  There is something sacred present in those who are weak, poor, homeless, diseased or aged.  I remember an elderly lady protesting to me her upset over the way a so called care facility was treating her husband who was in the most advanced stages of Alzheimer disease.  “Even if he doesn’t know what they are doing to him, he is a human being.  They have no right to treat him like that!” Unpleasant people, hostile people, unforgiving people, all, because they are persons created in the image and likeness of God and capable of reflecting this image, are sacred.  Perhaps at Christmas more than any other time of year, we are open to recognize the innate goodness of all even those who do not choose to do what is right.

On that list of what we hold as sacred we must place vows.  In these days of total lack of integrity within our society, vows take a special meaning.  Marriage vows, religious covenants, and faith commitments are promises we need to protect.  Some people take marriage lightly.  They stop off at the drive through chapel in Las Vegas on the way home from the bar.  That is not how we understand marriage vows.  For us, marriage vows are sacred.  Marriage vows are the commitment of a man and woman to unite their lives and their love to the life and love of the Lord.  Marriage vows have an impact upon the entire Christian community.  Those who make these vows commit themselves to forming a new Catholic Church in their homes. Those committed to these vows enrich the world with a new reflection of the Love of God.

In a similar way, religious vows and ordination vows are sacred.  The members of the religious congregation or order, be they sisters, brothers or religious priests, enter a life of sacred simplicity, relying completely upon the Lord.  They present Christian life returned to its innocence, without cares other than service of the Lord. The Trappists up in Conyers, the Salesians in St. Petersburg and Jesuits in Tampa, the Sisters of Notre Dame here in our Deanery, the Franciscan sisters and friars throughout our diocese, just to mention a few of those in our area who have taken religious vows, present us all with a model of the ideal Christian life.  Their lives are sacred because their vows are sacred.

In the same way the vows of Holy Orders, that of the deacons, priests and bishops, be they religious or diocesan, are sacred.  Those who take these vows embrace a life style of service to the community and active union with God.  We need priests to mediate the sacraments.  We value their vows.

Baptismal vows are sacred.  The person who lives his or her baptismal commitment has been raised to the dignity of Jesus Christ.  The baptized are capable of living the life of Christ.  When their baptism is elevated by confirmation, they are empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring God to others and others to God.  All other sacred vows--marriage vows, religious vows, priestly vows--all other sacred vows are nothing more than expressions of our baptismal vows.  There is nothing greater that we can be, any of us, than to be a Christian.

If we place human life and vows on the top of our list of that which is sacred, holy to God and to us, all else that is sacred follows.  Home goes on the list as sacred, because it shelters another sacred reality, family.  A promise, a vow, made a marriage that produces a family that settled into a place of love called a home.  The various expressions of the love that takes place in the home are sacred.  The whole gamut of the sharing of intimacy from thoughts and feelings to physical love is sacred because it expresses the union of persons that is the heart of the marriage vows.  The care for children at every stage of their lives is sacred because it realizes the respect parents have for the human life they have created with the Lord.

Freedom, freedom needs to be placed on our list of what is sacred.  Without freedom, human life cannot enjoy its full expression.  Professional responsibilities are sacred.  We hold sacred those professions that care for us, protect us, educate us.  I’m sure this is no surprise to you.  We routinely use the phrase in a negative sense that those who use their positions to take advantage of others have betrayed a sacred trust.

Space set aside for religious reasons is sacred and belongs on our list.  Churches, synagogues and mosques are sacred. Space is sacred when it continually recalls the promise of God to be faithful forever, his promise of salvation.

Christmas looks to life, the fullness of life with family and friends, the promise of life eternal.  Christmas is the fulfillment of a promise.  Christmas is a time to think anew about life, promises and other sacred things.  If we don't reflect from time to time on what is sacred, we probably will assure the arrival of a day when nothing is sacred anymore.

Now, during Advent, let’s make our lists.   Let’s list what is precious.  Let’s list what is needed.  Let’s add that list of what is sacred. And let’s mail our lists not to the North Pole but to One who is the Center of the Universe, the One who is the Sacred One.  This is one of the ways that we can wait well, preparing for the celebration of God’s gift to the world.