Throughout Advent, we will be sharing a reflection written by an STF alum on each Sunday’s Gospel. Rachel Warren wrote the first reflection. Rachel teaches 3rd grade in a classical charter school in a suburb of St. Paul, MN. She served in Cohort 10 at Brilla Caritas in the North Bronx as a 3rd Grade teacher in an ICT classroom and a 2nd Grade El Camino catechist.
“Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day…”
Romans 13:11-14
Prepare: the daunting Advent invitation which Christ urges us to undertake in today’s Gospel. “Stay awake!…You also must be prepared.”
Accompanying this annual invitation, for me, is the doubt that I’ll prepare well enough. But here’s a time I did prepare well. On a retreat recently, we received a challenge— prepare dinner in 45 minutes, AND there’s a special guest! We scrambled to prepare the meal and adorned the table with candles and fresh-cut flowers, meanwhile speculating about our guest (the Archbishop?!). Mediocrity was not an option, lest we disappoint him. At last the doorbell rang and we gathered around the entryway. To our surprise, a Sacred Heart of Jesus statue was carried in. He was our special guest.
If this exercise sounds like being tricked into excellence, so be it! Trick yourself into thinking Christ is the recipient of your actions, until you believe he really is. The prospect of a special guest motivated our loving preparation. How much more should we exhaust ourselves to receive Christ!
We knew our timeline but not our guest. At the Second Coming, we will know our guest but not his timeline, for “at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Advent, however, offers a sort of trial run where we know both our guest and his timeline. The Heart of Jesus comes in 25 days.
Between now and Christmas, how will you distinguish yourself from the other “out in the field” or “grinding at the mill”?
How will you respond to that scholar’s repeated question? complete that spreadsheet? Trek to Mass? Will you impress your guest with your urgency to love? Will you declutter and adorn your heart? Will you be ready to confidently say, as a good host, “Sacred Heart of Jesus, make yourself at home”?
