2013 The Second Sunday of Advent: Put Off the Toiling and Let Love In

The Second Sunday of Advent: Put Off the Toiling and Let Love In

"I am not going to make it!" I am not going to make it!" muttered the lady in the supermarket the first week of Christmas.

"It" probably referred to the massive preparation needed to provide her family with a beautiful Christmas. There were gifts to buy, to wrap, and some to send. There were meals to prepare and parties to attend. There was the house. It had to be immaculate. Her husband’s mother would be visiting. Enough said. Then the kids. They seem to have more parties to attend and higher expectations made of them than adults. And then there were Christmas cards. How was she supposed to get all this done for Christmas? "I’m not going to make it," she muttered.

The preparations for what we have turned Christmas into bring so much stress that we forget what Christmas really is. Yes, we all know we want to keep Christ in Christmas, but the steps needed to summon up what we think are the necessary feelings and emotions have overshadowed the meaning of the feast. The prescribed Christmas feelings of love, joy and peace cannot flow from the solid month of stress which is December.

So, what are we to do? Well, that is precisely what Advent is all about. We are to prepare for the celebration of God’s presence as one of us.

What I have found is that God cannot be outdone in generosity with our money, but in generosity with our time. Here’s wonderful Divine paradox: The busier we are, the more time we need to set aside for the Lord. The more time we aside for the Lord, the better our priorities are accomplished. What are we to do? We have to set aside more time than we normally spend in prayer.

John the Baptist came to help people get their priorities straight to prepare for the celebration of the Messiah among them. He told them to reform their lives, repent, not to presume that just because they were sons of Abraham that they will be saved, but instead to take action and produce the fruit of their conversions.

There are more important things to do then make cookies and buy presents. Yes, these things need to be accomplished, but there are more important things to do. We have to read the Christmas sections of Isaiah, the beginning of Chapters 9 & 11. We have to meditate on the wonders of the events leading up to the first Christmas, the annunciation to a young girl that her union with God was so complete that God had chosen her to become a human being through her. Her immediate response was to bring the joy and charity of God’s coming presence to an elderly cousin who needed help as her child was coming. We have to meditate on the first Christmas, when a stinky barn became the first receiving hall for the King of Kings and townspeople passed by unnoticing while shepherds heard the announcement from angels. A good meditation is to put ourselves in the various roles of the Christmas miracle. What if I were Mary or Joseph or Elizabeth or an innkeeper or townsmen or a shepherd? Am I open enough to the spiritual to hear Angels announcing Gloria? Are my eyes open enough to the spiritual to see a star? Will I ever be that wise or will I continually walk by Bethlehem with its hidden new born treasure?

Among the numerous Christmas stories and poems is the wonderful folktale of Bilfina:
Bilfina, the Housewife, scrubbing her pane saw three old sages ride down the lane,
Saw three grey travelers pass her door – Gaspar, Balthazar and Melchior.

"Where journey you, Sirs?" she asked of them.

Balthazar answered, "To Bethlehem, for we have news of a marvellous thing, born in a stable is Christ the King."

"Give him my welcome!"

Then Gaspar smiled, "Come with us, mistress, to greet the child."

"Oh, happily, happily would I fare, were my dusting through and I’d polished the stair."

Old Melchior leaned on his saddle horn, "Then send but a gift to the small Newborn."

"Oh, gladly, gladly, I’d send him one, were the earthstone swept and my weaving done.
As soon as I’ve baked my bread, I’ll fetch a pillow for his head, and a coverlet too,"
Belfina said. "When the rooms are aired and the linen dry, I’ll look at the babe."

But the three rode by.

She worked for a day, and a night and day. Then, gifts in her hands, took up her way.
But she never found where the Christ child lay. And she still wanders at Christmastide, houseless whose house was all her pride; whose heart was tardy, whose gifts were late wanders and knocks at every gate.

Crying, "Good people, the bells begin! Put off your toiling and let love in!"

Put off your toiling and let love in. The preparation for Christmas should not be the time of stress that we have allowed society to change it into. Our preparations for Christmas should be a time of prayer. The gift buying and giving and receiving should not be a matter of amassing possessions or of flattery, but a sign of the life-giving sacrificial love that came to the world when the one who would be crucified was born. Instead of being stressed over what we have to do and buy, we need to put ourselves before the Lord and let him make Christmas happen.

Yes, proper celebrations take time and hard work. But Mary of Bethany had the better part. She stopped to enjoy the presence of the Lord while her sister, Martha, busied herself about other things. We can do both, enjoy the presence of the Lord and prepare will for the celebration if we unite both. Our preparations must flow from our prayers to God. Then the Lord will make Christmas happen. Then, unlike the stressed lady in the supermarket, we will make it.

Used with Permission of the Author, Rev. Joseph Pelligrino,
Diocese of St. Petersburg, FL