I hope you had some quality time with family and friends over the Thanksgiving holidays celebrating the many gifts we share as a nation, as families and as a community. It has been a strange and difficult year with the pandemic lingering longer than anyone would have guessed and the long-term effects of this pandemic still unknown. But we celebrated together as families for the first time in a long time and it felt good even if it was a little strained by new fears. These new fears seem to be stirred by perpetual cycle of news and the media tends to play up the worst of what might happen, and our own imagination fills in the blank thus producing an endless list of anxieties. It seems that more people are worried about everything and there is a general increase in mental wellness across the board.
As the editors of Commonweal Magazine recently said, “Whether or not things are actually worse than normal, they certainly feel that way. That may be at least partly by design. Bad news and sensationalism in the media are nothing new—doom and gloom have always sold best—but the ever-more sophisticated algorithms deployed by tech and media companies, engineered to favor incendiary and divisive content in viewers’ feeds, have incentivized media outlets to produce and highlight more of these negative stories than they otherwise might. The result is that other, more positive stories are crowded out.”
What are we to do? We have a choice! We ALWAYS have a choice, not in what happens to us but how we respond in what happens to us. That is what distinguishes us from the other animals, we get to choose our response! As we close the liturgical year and this weekend we begin a new liturgical year in Advent, this season reminds us “the Christian tradition has always insisted that the way we see things—others, ourselves, our world—has moral, spiritual, and even cosmic stakes.”
Advent gives us an opportunity to look again at how we view our life and our faith in God even in the darker times. Now is the time to pause and look anew at our lives. When we read the scripture at Christmas, we will emphasize the birth of Christ in Bethlehem and how Mary gives birth to Jesus and lays him in a manger because “there was no room for them at the inn.” That is the danger for us, that we might not leave room for Jesus in our lives and the good news of the birth of Christ. That is why Advent is so important—we dedicate four weeks to preparing ourselves for that profound message of the joy of the incarnation.
This joy is the alternative to anxiety and despair. This joy is the antidote to all the games played by the media and the games played by our own minds in response to those fears. This joy only happens when we gather in community and believe in the Gospel message of hope amid the dark times. This joy is what we celebrate every Sunday when we gather at Eucharist. This joy is the cornerstone of every Sunday and we need it now more than ever.
I hope that we can commit anew to the weekly virtuous circle of life and make room for Jesus in the “inn of our hearts,” keeping the light of Christ on for all to see. I hope that you can commit to getting involved with your time and talent and build this community of joy for all who need it. I hope that you can help us renew our community through our love for one another and share in the Christmas joy. I hope that you can make this new liturgical year a new start for all of us. I hope you can choose Christ once more for the year ahead and live by the light of Christ.
God bless,
Fr. Brendan