O God, amid the clamour of our violence, your Word of truth resounds. Over nations enshrouded in despair, your justice dawns. Keep your household watchful and alert, mindful of the hour in which we live. Hasten the advent of that day when the sounds of war will be forever stilled, the darkness of evil scattered, and all your people gathered into one. Amen.
In the midst of the pre-Christmas hubbub, Advent reminds us that there’s more to life than continual movement, noise and clamour. Advent is an invitation to enter the quiet zone, where we can give ourselves permission to be, for a time at least, contemplative in non-action. And there we can bring before God some of the unspoken pleas, dreams and longings struggling for expression in our troubled, divided and wounded world.
In the stillness, our innate capacity to hear God’s Word can be sharpened, our hearing aids recharged. To take that Word into our minds and hearts, and to allow ourselves to be transformed by it, is the work of Advent. Of course, many of us will be reluctant to get off the treadmill of busyness and enter the quiet zone. We want action, speed and movement, not calm meditation. As for silence, it makes us uncomfortable, so we tune it out and step up the volume.
We’re preoccupied, too, by our countless problems, and we want answers immediately. After all, with algorithms to do our calculations, deal with glitches and make complicated decisions for us, we’re not used to waiting long for anything these days. And we feel impatient and irritated when people tell us to slow down and just wait – we don’t want to wait, we want instant gratification for all our desires. We want music in a major key, its tempo allegro; but the melodies of Advent, quietly hopeful, are in a minor key, their tempo adagio: “Wait for the Lord, whose day is near …” Nonetheless, the Advent invitation remains, echoing the words of Jesus to his disciples when, with so many people coming and going, they were run off their feet and had no time to think and reflect. “Come apart and rest for a while,” (Mark 6: 31) he said to them. It is in quiet moments that God’s Word may be heard.
Advent is the time of great desiring. We long for God to tear open the heavens and come to save us. Restless and troubled, we long for peace; in the darkness and confusion that surrounds us, we long for light; fearful and anxious, we long for courage; weighed down by sorrow, we long for joy; faced with the bleakness of life in today’s world – poverty, injustice, wars, pandemics – we beg for comfort. For our lack of compassion for people in need, for our failure to acknowledge the damage we are doing to the earth, we seek mercy. If moments of quietness are woven through the weeks of Advent, we will hear the voice of God, speaking gently, leading us out of the darkness, and when Christmas comes, we will see that the Kingdom of God is in our midst.
Sister Teresa White FCJ