As I write this blog entry from my office with the patches of sunlight streaming through my window, I am thinking about the fact that Christmas is less than three weeks away. On Thursday, it will be exactly two weeks away. I have now been here for a little over eight weeks--two months--and there are still boxes to move or unpack (in both office and home) and what seem like a million things to get done. Into that sense of urgency, Christmas can sometimes seem almost like an intrusion. One is almost tempted to say to God: "How dare you interrupt my important work, everything I need to get done, with yet more things that need to get done because of Christmas?!"
And yet, as the video below illustrates, Christmas is not intended to be an additional burden to add to the stack, but as an opportunity for transformation. Advent, then, is the opportunity to prepare for such transformation:
This video challenges me as a father, a person, and perhaps especially as a priest, to look at my own life and ask where God is trying to break in, to transform me into the person he wants me to be. That transformation will not occur because I crossed the last thing off my to-do list, as if that ever happens, but can only occur if I make the time to put aside the list for the one thing that actually makes a difference--the coming of Jesus. As these next few weeks roll by, join me in stepping back, taking a breath, and preparing, really preparing, for transformation. Who knows what God might do?
(thanks to Irenic Thoughts, the blog of King of Peace, Kingsland, GA)
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