By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
My ministry as priest involves readiness to adapt the shepherd’s “crook” to the various pastoral situations in which I find myself. Most of the time the shepherd’s crook, or staff, supports me in my walk of faith, keeping me steady on my own feet as I walk with and for the flock through this world to the next. The journey sometimes wearies us and we need to lean upon the true Shepherd for strength.
Sometimes, however, I have to be ready to use the other end of the staff, with its curved shape, to reach out and draw a straying member of the flock back into oneness with the fold. People fall away from faith, some very easily, leaving their place in the fold empty, calling me to seek them out wherever they have wandered.
The Advent season both proclaims the Second Coming of Christ and His first coming. He came very humbly among us in Bethlehem, as one like ourselves. One day He will come in all His glory, withholding nothing of His appearance as God from us. On that great day all mysteries and all faith will be useless to us, because we will be standing in His real and eternal light; our lives, whether good or evil, will be manifest to God and to all on that day. There will be no changing of positions at the end of the world because our words and deeds will be set in stone, determining forever our relationships with God.
The Advent season, therefore, is a source of great blessing to us, calling us to “walk in the light of the Lord” in the words of the Prophet Isaiah. What is the nature of this “light”? We know that it must be like that light which will be manifest to all on the last day, revealing good and evil as they truly are, ending all appearances that can deceive.
But it will also be the light of truth, revealing the power and glory of God’s never-ending love. Because of this it will be a beautiful light for those who have lived in His mercy.
The invitation of Advent, then, is to live not in fear, with its nature as a kind of darkness, but to walk in God’s love because of His forgiveness, which sheds a light for which the beauty of the sun is but a mere symbol.
Light is a symbol of the Advent season with the lighting of the candles each week, the glow growing brighter as the birth of the Lord draws near. There is another light, however, that is more powerful and beautiful because it does not depend upon an earthly source to feed its hunger for fuel; a fire that cannot die because its source is not limited by the elements of this world.
The power of this other kind of light is conferred as a gift from God. We encounter that gift in the centurion as we read in Matthew chapter 8, a man of authority who knows its source in obedience. The faith of the centurion is light to us because his words reflect an interior life aglow with faith in Christ: “I too am a man subject to authority.”
He recognizes that Jesus’ obedience, like his, is an authentic source of authority, conferring worthiness to influence and direct the lives of others. Christ lived openly as One who lived evidently in loving obedience to God and who therefore reflects the Father as One who is worthy of command like the centurion. This shared obedience is precisely the nature of faith.
Loving Christ must be stronger than a mere sentimental attachment, which can pass once the candles of the Advent wreath are snuffed out for the final time and the Christmas tree packed away once again. The gift of Advent invites us to discover the true power of faith which cannot be extinguished like a candle exposed to the merest breeze. Our faith must be like that of the centurion, praised by Christ as authentic because it is a source of the strength we need to persevere in finishing the journey, to reach the eternal light of Heaven.
When we live the obedience to God the Father that we see in the life of Christ as did the centurion, we share the saving gift of faith. The assurance this grace confers by God’s saving love warms us, an inner, spiritual fire for our journey on Earth as we yearn for the undying light of Heaven’s glory.
Thank you for reading and best wishes for a spiritually renewed faith during this Advent season. “Come, Lord Jesus!”
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(Father is offering an Advent series of reflections daily at Meeting Christ in the Liturgy, mcitl.blogspot.com, and blogs occasionally at APriestLife.blogspot.com. Follow Fr. Cusick on Facebook at Reverendo Padre-Kevin Michael Cusick and on Twitter @MCITLFrAphorism. You can email him at mcitl.blogspot.com@gmail.com.)
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