I did a great deal of preparing for Christmas and it felt lovely. My tree was decorated and most of the gifts were purchased ahead of time. I had the supplies for the holiday baking. Firewood was stacked. Rooms were tidied for guests. My Christmas movie playlist was ready and set to go. Yet, while sitting quietly one early morning by our beautifully lit tree and warm winter fire, I found myself wrestling with feelings of discontent and turning to prayer to figure it out.
The theme for Catholics in Advent is to “prepare.” Isaiah chapter 40:3 reminds us that “A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” As I sat there, I was feeling proud that I had prepared for this season. It was all finished! But was it really? Why this angst within me?
During Advent, I used the Face to Face Lenten Devotional with Father Mike Schmitz from Ascension Press. In his typical down-to-earth style, he opens scripture and helps listeners draw more closely into a relationship with the Lord, that we may know Him more intimately. One of his reflections particularly struck me as he spoke about how frustrating it is for some of his college students to receive an incomplete grade. Having college students of my own, I smiled because I have been that parent who is on the receiving end of that woe. “But Mom, I did all the things!” I gently listen and then help that child realize that he or she must have forgotten one crucial thing. It’s like baking a cake and missing the baking powder; it will not rise. When the cake comes out flat, we have evidence that we missed a key ingredient, and we go back to examine what that could be. My discontent felt an awful lot like missing baking soda.
I realized how easy it is in this season to miss the key ingredient in all our preparation. As I sat there with the Lord and as I congratulated myself on being “prepared,” I realized I have done so to ease my workload and none of that has cleared a path for Him. Thanks be to God for these moments of clarity. How easy it is as a parent to get caught up in the fanfare of the holiday season, especially with our children! Is there a way to have the fanfare directed toward Him? I remember when my kids were younger how much they loved the transition of the church from ordinary time to Advent. One year, we decided to stop in and ask if we could help with those preparations and it became something to look forward to year after year. The dear couple in charge of the preparations would welcome my little ones as guests of honor and give them purple ornaments and ribbons to decorate the altar. They’d carry the decorative hay bales for the nativity and set the magi farther away as “they were still traveling.” We made Christmas cookies and then we packaged them up and took them to our favorite cashiers at the grocery store and sang Christmas carols to them. As each child grew and the secret of St. Nicholas was passed down, we each chose our own person whom we could surprise and bless. I remember one year, one of my children chose a particularly crotchety difficult neighbor and myself standing at the road as he crept quietly up to leave the gift. My heart was transformed at that moment. They saw the need for Jesus and swept in to fill the gap with some homemade gift of jam and bread.
As we get older, it’s easy to lose our tenacity in pursuing Jesus in this season. That’s the missing ingredient for me and I wonder if it might be for others. Are we so busy checking boxes off our lists that we forget the one thing that is absolutely necessary for our hearts to be at rest, to truly prepare for the season? Thanks be to God for a conscience that calls us into a relationship with Him! Thanks be to God for the quiet to feel and see this realization and begin again with new eyes, older children, and in a different season, finding ways to not just prepare our homes, but prepare our hearts.
As my husband and I prayed our rosary together last night, I felt the conviction to lead by example. So instead of that holiday movie a day that has become normal, we can add in something more faith-based. With my older kids, I find that when I have a movie or show on as background noise, because clearly in a home of eight children we need more noise, I am able to draw them into the living room. A warm fire, and a quickly heated up plate of cookies and I have an opportunity to talk faith and help them prepare their hearts. I tread carefully but with purpose. I can return to old traditions and choose my St. Nick gift and ask them who there might be, perhaps offering to go in halfway with them to reinstitute this tradition in their hearts. Is there a co-worker who is in need? A friend on campus who is in need of a light?
We filled our Advent calendar with candy. The joy of waiting was all around us but had been secularized. Reclaiming it is our mission, especially within our families. So, here’s to persevering on our journey! Let us not find ourselves at the end with the key ingredient, Jesus, having been left out of our preparations. Let us instead wrap Him into our celebrations through music, feast days, giving and time spent together. Seeds of faith are watered in this season for us all. May we have eyes, ears and hearts ready to receive Him!