Advent Reflection
When asked if I would like to write a reflection on what Advent means to me, my first thought was “they’ve certainly asked the wrong person.” That prompt was clearly for people who have their spiritual life (and life in general) more in order than me.
As I pondered what Advent meant to me, it took me back to my first Advent. I was a 21-year-old college student, non-baptized and “unchurched” who had been coming to RCIA at a Roman Catholic Church. A recent experience with gun violence along with other kinds of violence in my apartment complexes had put me on a journey. A journey to find meaning in this world beyond what was in front of me. A journey to find a place where I felt safe and at home. I looked upon the holy family with the idealism of a 21 year old. I was sure I’d be able to build a beautiful idealistic Catholic family in the future.
Fast forward 20 years to today, things are incredibly different and much more complex in my life. I have a family, it is no longer welcome in the Catholic Church, and it shares almost nothing with my idealistic vision of 20 years ago. Perhaps that makes a lot of sense because barely anything that goes on in the gospels, outside of the actions of Jesus, are ideal. In fact it’s usually quite messy.
The holy family were pulled by the demands of the world, the census started their journey. The only place that would give a woman in labor and her newborn shelter was a manager. The government targets their child by murdering an entire set of children. They’re on yet another difficult journey with no real plan or idea what’s going to happen. They have no electronic communications, no way to call and make reservations, they can’t call the police or an ambulance. They push forward and try to make the best choices they can with the little information they have. They do so to protect their child, who happens to be the Messiah, but for now is a dependent vulnerable newborn. They have no way of knowing how His life is going to play out or where they will fit in it.
The idea that we need to “have our lives in order” just doesn’t check out with the Gospels. The story of a perfect family where everything goes right and happiness overflows is nowhere to be found. If our lives are messy, our best laid plans destroyed by the world, that’s nothing new to Jesus, the holy family, or the apostles for that matter. Advent this year for me means recalibrating my perspectives and releasing anxieties about not having my life “in order.” Faith is a much better companion through the chaos of the world than anxiety. Jesus never tells us we need to have everything in order. He does repetitively remind us not to worry.
Mariah Leszczewski, Parishioner
