Christmas Vigil 24.12.17 Desire
This is the age of instant gratification. People take what
is due to them before it is due, and even if it is not due them, there are many
who will still take.
The idea of deferring pleasure to a later time is not an
easy one to sell – even if the delay will bring more happiness overall. For
example, food seems a lot more satisfying after a fast than if we have been
eating all along.
The Church, in her wisdom, has established seasons of
penance before seasons of joy, and vigils before major feasts.
This gives us a chance to cultivate a hunger for what the
feast is offering us.
In the case of Advent (and the Vigil of Christmas) our
hunger is for the effects of Christ’s coming among us.
Christmas must be the easiest feast to miss in terms of
other distractions. To miss, that is, the spiritual richness of the feast.
Those who come to Mass only at Christmas are missing out on
necessary preparation. We have to give time to God to understand more deeply
how He is saving us, and what He wants us to know.
One or two Masses a year will not be enough.
So we are here now, seeking to get this right for ourselves,
and atoning for the general lack of enthusiasm in the human family.
We let our hunger for God be deepened. Like a lover seeking
the beloved (cf Song of songs, Hosea, where God uses marriage imagery to
describe His relationship with His people.)
The lover goes looking for her Beloved – an image of the
Church, as bride, seeking the Bridegroom. The eventual discovery of him is more
joyful for the fact that there was a time without him.
God looks at us like that. He longs to be united with us! And we respond with stony indifference (in the
main) – a one-sided love story. We need the other side to turn up!
It is worth something when even one more person can get into
this view of what is really happening. This is Christmas, much deeper than all
the trimmings.
One theme of Advent is, Look out for the Master in case he returns
unexpectedly and you are not ready. That is a true consideration.
But we could also say, Look out for the Master simply
because He is desirable to know. This is apart from any thought of reward or punishment.
Somehow this does not happen. Our desire has been spent on
other things, less than God.
We desire the forbidden fruit, but not the One who made the
whole garden.
Our desire is generally stunted or restricted to too small
an area, and we spend our time and energy on filling that desire, not realizing
there is an infinity of delight and goodness beyond where we are looking.
People who spend Christmas just partying think they are
happy, and to some extent they are; but they would be a lot more happy if they
were seeking God for His own sake; losing themselves in Him, like the Lover and
Beloved.
This is the language of the saints, and mystics, and the
Bible itself.
Instead, people ignore God, except to tell Him off for not
running the universe properly.
We are here to set matters straight. We will celebrate
Christmas with an increasing awareness of what it means (always with God's
help).
We pray for the right understanding to grow everywhere; that
people will grasp with sufficient awareness the importance of His Incarnation
and other events.
That they will develop a taste for God, which will be good
for them, and the whole Church.
We need Him to come among us to save us from sluggishness,
deafness, blindness, etc….
He needs us to recognize that we are sluggish, deaf, blind
etc! Come, Lord Jesus.
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