St. Mary's Church Elizabeth, IL

Get Ready for Christmas

An illustration shows a husband sitting in a car yelling to his care-worn wife: “Hurry up, will you? I spend half my life waiting for you.” Next frame shows the wife bathing the children, cleaning the kitchen, and packing a picnic dinner. The message is obvious. His waiting would have been a lot less stressful if he had pitched in to help, instead just griping.

There is a lot of waiting in life and from our first-hand experience we know that it can be a total waste of time, or it can be productive. Our spiritual growth is a gradual process, but we must play an active part. We can’t just sit back, and hope God will change us. St. James in his letter exhorts his readers to be patient as they wait for the coming of Christ as judge (James 12:14-26). Not a negative patience but a positive preparation. We wait for God’s kingdom, but all too often we have just a distant idea of what the kingdom is all about. The kingdom will never come unless we do our part. We can wait with patience in hope and trust yet do nothing, because we feel we cannot change anything. In his writing to the Christian Community in Rome, Paul says that the kingdom of God “is not the matter of what we eat or drink but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17). It comes to us by actively waiting. The same is with our waiting for Christmas. If we wait just for December 25, we are missing the point. We must wait like the prophets of old, who relied on wisdom from above and were empowered by the Holy Spirit. Their faith remained undimmed because the Lord inspired them. Let us enrich our lives by regular prayer, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, frequent receiving of the Eucharist. Read the Scripture. Stay positive. Grumbling is contagious but so is a smile. Prayerfully discern in what ways the Lord wants to use you in serving Him.

Love is Christ’s power that is going to prepare us for Christmas.