Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

First Snow

Advent Clean Up

When I was growing up, whenever we had out of town guests come to our house, we cleaned the place up. Sometime all it took was a little dusting and some vacuuming; but sometimes it involved moving the couch out from the wall or waxing the kitchen floor. But one room in the back hallway seldom got cleaned because we didn’t intend for guests to see it. It was the room where we stored boxes of things that we seemed unable to throw out.

Advent is a season for cleaning up for the arrival of Christ. We want our lives to be nice and presentable when the Son of God comes, but most of us have a private back room where we keep things like old hurts, resentments, grudges, and regrets, things we have no real use for but hold on to, nonetheless.

This Advent why not ask the Holy Spirit to help us get rid of some that junk we’ve stored away? Then, when Christ comes, we can invite him to make himself at home, not just in some of the rooms of our lives, but all of them, including the one in the back hallway.

Tourist Stop

Desiring in Advent

Advent is a season when we’re encouraged to pay attention to our desires. Desires aren’t the wishes and wants which our materialistic age tells us are easily satisfied if we own the right things or have the right look. Desires reside in a deeper place. Human desires are about things that can’t be bought but come only as gifts.

Advent is a time to cultivate our love and desire for God, a season to pray for those things that will strengthen our faith, hope, and love. Advent reaches forward to Christmas and makes us ready to receive the great gift of the birth of Christ. As you spend time in reflection this Advent, ask yourself what you really desire  (“you” can mean your own self, your family and friends, or your church community) and how the coming of Christ can be the answer to that longing.

A Chill in the Air

In this era of global warming, there’s a global chill in the soul thanks to our difficult and unpredictable economy. We wonder how long the economic downturn will last, but shouldn’t we also wonder how far the bonds that unite people can stretch before they begin to unravel? If we come to regard the welfare of our immediate families as the only real issue and that of others as none of our business, or, worse, consider other people as enemies in the competition for economic security, then the whole fabric of society will be at risk.

In these chilly times, economists and policy makers have important work to do. But we followers of Jesus have opportunities and responsibilities as well. We will have to explicitly re-assert the truth that, simply by virtue of being children of God, we are all connected to each other and that those who are hurt most and have the fewest resources for weathering the economic storms have a claim on us all.

We will also have to pay special attention to those who have, following the lead of American culture, based their self-esteem on material possessions and the positions of influence that come along with wealth. When the bankruptcy of those beliefs begins to show itself, then we need to be able to talk about a dignity that is God-given and has nothing to do with economic standing. And we need to do this not for the purpose of making converts, but to provide people a sound basis for living in hope.

To put it in a different way, if the gospel is really “good news,” then it has to be so not just for the fat years but for the lean as well. It is up to believing individuals and communities of faith to discover and articulate what the gospel means for these times — and thus bring some warmth to our cold days.