One of the things we started a couple years ago in the parish office is a spreadsheet we call the “Baby-tracker”! Whenever a parishioner tells us they are expecting, or one of their friends shares the good news, or we hear about it through social media, we write that family’s name down along with their anticipated due date. Why do we do this? First of all, it allows us to pray with our families, for a safe and healthy pregnancy. It also helps us to reach out to see if they need anything, especially after the baby is born, perhaps meals, clothes, or whatever else. Finally, it lets our families know that we share their joy, anticipation, and excitement as they welcome new life into the world.
This same sort of joy, anticipation, and excitement for the arrival of Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Mary, is what our Church hopes to foster in us during this brief, advent season. However, our perennial preparation for the Word Made Flesh is not the only arrival of Jesus the Church wants us to prepare for! In addition to commemorating Jesus’ coming to earth as a baby, the advent scriptures also remind us to get ready for the final coming of Jesus as a most perfect, just, and powerful judge. In this final coming, Jesus will bring to completion his work of redemption, rewarding all those who remained faithful to Him and His Church while putting an end to the reign of sin, punishing all who made evil their good.
Advent is a preparation for both. And while it is much easier to get excited for the arrival of the Christ-child, to ignore the return of Jesus as ruler and judge is to be only be half-prepared. In fact, in today’s gospel, Jesus warns his listeners to stay watchful and awake so the day of visitation doesn’t catch us off-guard like a thief in the night!
So, the all-important question…what will we be judged on?
St. John of the Cross, great saint and mystic, says we will be judged on love alone. Jesus is not fixated on legalistic rules or gotcha moments. What will determine our eternal destiny is how completely we loved God (who deserves to be loved with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength) and how well we loved others (trying give them the same love that God first gave us).
The word “Love” in English has been highly polluted. The same word is used to describe the affection we have for people, places, and things, ranging from sports teams, hamburgers, and vacations all the way to family and friends. The love we will be judged on is not so much affective (how strongly we felt it). No, our love will be judged on how effective it was. What did it produce? Did it lead others to grow closer to God? Did it make us into better people? We will be asked, “What did your love do? Did it give glory to God? Did it feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, welcome the stranger and all the many acts of mercy?
St Paul knew how crucial this life of love was for every single Christian. That’s why he prays for the Thessalonians today that they may increase and ABOUND in love for one another and for all. We might understand St. Paul as saying, “may you overflow with love for all.”
This, of course is a wonderful desire but very difficult to live out for a lifetime. I think there are two main things that keep us from abounding in love:
- like the grinch (and often my clothes this time of year), our hearts are often two sizes too small! Anatomically speaking, the heart is a muscle, the only organ classified as such. But spiritually speaking, our hearts also follow the same principles as physical muscle, which is: use it or lose it! If our hearts are not constantly challenged, if they do not push back against the relentless tendency to think of ourselves first and choose selfishness, they will weaken, shrivel, and contract. A heart that is too small becomes selfish, cowardly, and cold.
So what helps our hearts to expand and grow strong? In a word, sacrifice, thinking of others before ourselves. The irony of christian charity is that we receive more love, the more freely we give it away. Our happiness increases the less we focus on it. I have seen this happen in each of my siblings as they become parents and their hearts increase beyond what they ever thought possible. The best of them is drawn out as their heart is stretched to love their children and every new parent says, in their own way, "I never knew I could love another person this much!!”
2) The second thing that keeps us from abounding in love is that often, like a hoarder’s house, our hearts are too full; there is no room for Jesus in our lives.
In our materialistic society, the room in our hearts can be completely stuffed with things. One of the benefits of priesthood is that we get moved fairly often and we live where the Archbishop tells us. Most of the rectories are much smaller than the one we have here and it forces us to get rid of lots of things. Things we forgot we even had! I am struck by the ever increasing number of storage facilities everywhere I drive. It is a symptom of our struggle to fill our lives with more and more things which leaves less and less room for Jesus.
Another area where we fill our hearts to the very top is in the area of control. We have a plan and there is literally no room for Jesus in it. Perhaps that shows itself in our schedule. Daily prayer doesn’t happen because there are too many other activities to do first. Weekly Mass is inconsistent because other commitments take priority. More and more couples are choosing to go childless because welcoming new life into their home threatens their freedom and independence. For myself, I see this temptation appearing in the form of resenting interruptions. It’s easy to create a timeline for my day, my week, my life and when Jesus presents himself in the face of others who need my help, who ask for my attention, sometimes simply for a compassionate ear or human warmth, I don’t want to be bothered. Why can’t people make an appointment? Don’t they know how much stuff I need to do?
Finally, our hearts can be filled to the brim with unholy desires for satisfaction and fulfillment from worldly things. This never-ending quest is fed by a lack of gratitude for the things and people in our lives. In this state, the more we have, the emptier we feel. As a result, we long for the next great thing, another new experience, or a perfect relationship that will make us happy. Meanwhile all that we have becomes a burden and a blockade to welcoming Jesus, who approaches us in the most gentle, non-threatening way he can: as a newborn baby and the only cure for our restless hearts.
As we enter this holy advent season, we can focus on just one thing: are we abounding, overflowing with love? Are we prepared to welcome Christ the newborn king and also Jesus, the just judge? Where might he find our hearts too small at this moment? Where might he discover our hearts too full with our worries, obsessions, addictions, and possessions? Now is the time to confront these things face to face. Now is the time to give unto to others so God can grow our hearts more like his. Now is the time to clear out everything that crowds out love for God and his people, especially the ones he has placed right next to us in our daily lives. Now is the time to abound in love!!
