Advent and the Path to Peace

This weekend we put up the Christmas tree, window candle-lights, wreaths, icicle lights, advent wreath and an assortment of angels, in preparation for Christmas.  Advent is a time of preparation for both Christmas, i.e., the coming of the Christ child, and also a time to prepare ourselves for our ultimate destiny.  After all, Jesus came into the world, not to establish a year-end holiday, but for our salvation.  While most of the world is busy with decorating, purchasing gifts, and preparing for family gatherings over a long holiday weekend, Christians are supposed to be using Advent as a time to prepare our souls for the coming of Christ, not just the commemoration of His coming to earth 2000 years ago, but for His second coming, and our encounter with Him at the hour of our death.

Despite the frenetic activity associated with the holiday season, we are called to pause and reflect on where our lives are headed, and what we might need to do in order to be prepared for life after death.  Scripture readings for the first Sunday of Advent make this clear:

“For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed;
Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and lust, not in rivalry and jealousy, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”  (Romans 13:12-14)

In the gospel, Jesus warns us to be prepared:

“So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be out in the field;
one will be taken, and one will be left.  Two women will be grinding at the mill;
one will be taken, and one will be left.  Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.  Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into.  So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” (Mt 24:40-44)

So just how do we prepare ourselves amidst the hustle and bustle of the Christmas/Holiday Season?  Fifty years ago, it was common for Catholics to make sacrifices, similar to those made in Lent, such as giving up candy, fasting between meals, or making an effort to perform good deeds.  The purpose of these disciplines was to force ourselves to exercise control over our bodily desires and “offer it up” as a spiritual exercise.  While these spiritual exercises have for the most part gone by the wayside, the wisdom behind them is profound.  Asserting self-control over our human desires is a means of directing who we are, and whom we are becoming.  Throughout our lives, we spend most of our early years, preparing ourselves, making sacrifices to get an education, learning job-skills, and improving our bodies and minds.  When we order our lives in such a way as to exert self-control and focus our efforts, we succeed in our endeavors, and if we don’t, things become dis-jointed or disordered, leading to disappointment and anxiety. 

Despite the prosperity we enjoy, living in a free country where 93% of those who want to work have jobs, there is still a great deal of stress, anxiety, and discontent.  Perhaps the reason for these maladies is a mistaken notion of peace.  We tend to think of peace as the absence of problems, but when we remove the obstacles in our lives, what is left is a void.  Peace is not merely the end of war and violence, the resolution of conflict and the absence of noise, but rather, peace is what St. Augustine called, “the tranquility of order.”  Seeking true peace is to seek the proper order in our lives, starting with the needs and demands of our flesh.  Using human reason to control and direct our passions is a start, but not the end-game for true peace and happiness.  Another way of putting this is that our spirit needs to order the physical aspect of our lives, so that we are not ruled by our appetites and passions, lest we fall victim to dis-orders of various sorts.  When our passions are in charge, reason is absent and things don’t turn out well.  So the first order is to use our spirit to direct our passions toward the good of the person and humanity.

The second form of order, according again to St. Augustine, is to order our spirit to God.  Having been created in the image and likeness of God, our souls cannot be at rest unless they are ordered to God and the truths He has revealed in nature itself.  This is why we feel closer to God when we observe the tranquility and beauty of nature, because it reminds of God, our Creator.  God further revealed Himself through His Son Jesus who told us:

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives, do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”  (John 14:27)

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33). 

Jesus has given us the prescription for true peace.  “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  (Phil 4:7)

In a world torn by violence and political discord there can be no peace unless there is first peace in the heart of all people.  The forced atheism of communism has been defeated, but replaced by secularism which is more subtle, yet no less destructive to peace.   There can be no peace as long as the world and the country are ordered to human desire alone, to the exclusion of God.  When Jesus was born and the angels proclaimed His birth, they sang, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased."  (Luke 2:14)   In other words, peace is conditioned to those who are pleasing to God.   Advent is a great time to remind ourselves that pleasing ourselves is meaningless unless we order our lives to God.  One way to do that is to pray for the courage to seek God’s will in our lives, and in the life of our nation.