Living H
one day at a time
Hope Love has come…. Rejoice!
The Prefaces of the Mass are often overlooked. It used to be, I’m sad to say, that I hardly even heard them as I waited to sing the Sanctus. The words, “and so we sing with all the angels and saints the hymn of your glory,” would trigger my awareness, and my straying attention would return to the Mass. These lovely prayers, however, quietly offer us a window into eternity.
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et me share with you what I mean. The prefaces for the Seasons of Advent and Christmas tell us in different ways that human nature was transformed when, in the birth of Christ, Eternity stepped into time:
“When he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest we who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope” (Advent Preface I). “Already we rejoice at the mystery of his Nativity, so that he may find us watchful in prayer and exultant in his praise” (Advent Preface II). “For through him the holy exchange that restores our life has shown forth today in splendor:
when our frailty is assumed by your Word …we, too, are made eternal” (Nativity of the Lord Preface III). For children Advent and Christmas are about Santa and gifts and the magic of the season. You see it in their eyes, in their excitement as they whisper their Christmas list to Santa in the mall, and as they kneel in wonder before the crèche on Christmas Day. Kids are extra good these last days before Santa’s and Jesus’s arrival. They are hoping that parents and others will keep their promises and give them the presents they really want.
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hat if our childish excitement at Christmas time is really just “practice” for the excitement at the wondrous mystery of being “made eternal” that should mark our adult days?
What would be different about our lives if this excitement bubbled up in our hearts all year through? I think God made kids self-centered on purpose. We think kids should grow out of this as they grow up, becoming able to think of others instead of themselves. And certainly there’s a point to that.
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hat if we experimented with that concept, however, and played with the idea that perhaps God wishes we adults were as focused as children on the gifts God desires to give us: to be made “new by the glory of his immortal nature” (Epiphany of the Lord Preface). So follow the example of children this Christmas! Be selfish! Whisper in God’s ear all that you desire from him. There is a running joke in my family about my first Christmas in the convent. When my dad asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told him, “Shoelaces….” Really I did need a pair of shoelaces, and he gladly got them for me. But for heaven’s sake…. It’s Christmas! Don’t just ask God for “shoelaces.” Ask the Lord for the grace and strength to attain our final goal to live forever singing his praises! This should top our list this holy season. Sr. Kathryn James, fsp
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