It's Advent Again

Christmas is fast approaching. And, approaching even faster, is Advent. Advent is a convenient little festival. It happens just before Christmas to remind us that… Christmas is approaching. In a “Christmas mad” country like ours, where the Christmas countdown begins in September, it is almost unnecessary to have a formal reminder of its approach. Yet Advent comes, and often goes, buried beneath the glitz and glamour of Christmas. It is easy to think, therefore, why even bother with Advent.
For many of us, Advent is a festival that heralds the coming of Christmas; or perhaps, a better way, to put is, it heralds the coming of the Christ. It is a reminder that we need to prepare for this coming of Christ. But how does one prepare, especially in a modern world that occupies all our time? Do we set aside more time for prayer, for going to mass, for meditation, for doing good deeds? More importantly, how does one prepare inside?
Let us imagine that our very bodies were dark caves. Our external appearance would be like the surrounding mountains (and for some of us on the heavy side, we do look like rounded hills). Hidden beneath our external appearance lies a cavity, a cave. Like all caves, this is a dark, damp place, possibly with flowing rivers and calcium based formations. It is full of life, yet not readily visible to the naked eye. The part of our body that faces the external world, lives continuously in the steady rhythm of sunlight and moonlight. Our hidden selves, that part which lies within us, lives constantly in the dark. Such is our physical design.
Let us now extend this imagination. Let us imagine that Christ is to be born in this cave within us, this darker region of our beings. When we are dirty, we take a bath, yet this only cleanses our external being. How do we cleanse and prepare our inner regions to take in the Christ? With this picture, as simple as it may sound, we begin to develop an idea of how difficult it must be to prepare for the coming of the Christ. We cannot simply “wash” our inner beings with soap and water much as we do our external beings. To cleanse our inner beings would require a transformation of our lifestyle. Ask any doctor. If you are overweight with fatty deposits clogging the arteries, the permanent solution is to change your eating habits. This requires a change in lifestyle. Thus, by extending this analogy, we see to that prepare our inner beings for the Christ, we must begin by revisiting our lifestyles. How does our lifestyle clean or sully our inner being.
Whenever confronted with a challenge as difficult as this, we look for models; others who may inspire us on how to do it. For Advent, the preparation of the coming of the Christ, there is such a model: Mary. Mary was approached by an archangel and told that she had a task. What ensued was a conversation between Mary and the archangel. Like a diligent “patient” Mary sought to understand what was happening, why her, what is she to do? The archangel, like a good doctor, gave the information he was capable of giving. Mary reflected on what she heard; then, she made a decision. Yes, she would do the task given. Not only did she mean she was ready to do it; she also meant she had prepared to do it.
Most of us never look at the visit of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary in this light. We always see it as the wonderful event that it is. Perhaps by looking at it in a different light, it may relate directly to our preparation. Mary got all the necessary information she needed from the archangel; she thought about it; she assessed herself in a way to determine her readiness. She believed she had prepared and, as a result, accepted the task. She literally prepared a space within her for the Christ child to come. She had “cleaned” her inner being in preparation. We will never know if Mary had a healthy lifestyle, was vegetarian and exercised regularly. What we do accept is that Mary had a certain purity, clarity of soul, clean inner being that allowed her to be the bearer of the Christ child. And what a difference it made for the world.
As we prepare during Advent for the coming of Christ, let us look into our lifestyles, lifestyles that clog our inner beings with “fatty deposits”, “sugar”, “tar”, etc. that prevent us from having the clean space in our selves to receive the Christ. In a way, as we continue in our present ways, without a thought to how we live our lives, without preparing our inner selves for His coming, we are no better than the innkeepers who turned away Mary and Joseph by saying there was no room.
Advent is the time to prepare. It is difficult because it affects that which we desire most, our lifestyles. Yet, such changes are possible with tremendous results, more compassion, more love, and a cleaner, healthier world.