I love the season of Advent. I have come to appreciate and
understand it more since I entered the monastery 19 years ago. Before that, I was aware the month
before Christmas was called Advent but I really didn’t pay much attention to
it. There was some thing called a
Jesse Tree in church (a dead tree branch with what I couldn’t tell - hanging on
it)...maybe an Advent wreath...but
Advent was more about the shopping days left until Christmas instead of
anticipating the Messiah. Plus you
could watch a 24 hour marathon of “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “The Christmas
Story” on TNT on what is now known as Black Friday.
That all changed after I became a
postulant. The first adjustment I
had to get used to is NO decorating for Christmas before Dec. 17th. That was the monastic way of trying to keep Advent as Advent. I was used to a world of 24 hour
Christmas music; putting up the tree shortly after Thanksgiving (so you could
enjoy it longer - somehow it doesn’t occur to people to keep the tree up longer
AFTER Christmas for that same reason); hanging lights all over the house;
shopping for presents...it seemed a little scrooge-like to not anticipate
Christmas like the secular world I was used to. So, over the years I would put
up little things in the privacy of my bedroom where no one would see. I would have my little nativity set on
the top of my bookshelf by Dec. 6th. Sometimes I would even turn on the lights in my window
before the specified day to which novices (whom I should have been setting a better example for)...would shake their heads.
It was when I began to experience Advent as a
liturgical season that I grew to love it for its own sake. I fell in love with the daily readings
at Mass, especially the ones from Isaiah which are so prevalent and speak of
deserts blooming and the blind seeing and the lame leaping.
As a postulant I discovered a book that I have
since gone back to many times called “The Reed of God” by Caryll
Houselander. She describes Advent as
“the season of the secret - the secret of the growth of Christ - of Divine Love
growing in silence...if we truly have given our humanity to be changed into
Christ, (that’s what I thought I was doing by entering a monastery) it
is essential to us that we do not disturb this time of growth. It is a time of darkness, of
faith. We shall not see Christ’s
radiance in our lives, yet; it is still hidden in our darkness. Nevertheless, we must believe that He
is growing in our lives and believe it so firmly that we cannot help relating
everything, literally everything, to this incredible reality...”
“...We are too impatient, a seed
contains all the life and loveliness of the flower but it contains it in a
little hard black pip of a thing which even the glorious sun will not enliven
unless it is buried under the earth.
There must be a period of gestation before anything can flower.”
I know in my own life I want to go straight to
flowering. Skip the gestation or
keep it short! Advent reminds me
every year that is not how the Holy Spirit works.
 |
| Rosa knocks on the chapel door during the ritual for entering postulants |
We had the happy event of having Rosa Cruz
enter the postulancy on December 2nd, the first Sunday of Advent. A fitting time to begin religious life,
I think. Advent marks
the beginning of the new Church Year and the postulancy a beginning in monastic
life. Both events are filled with expectancy, eagerness, and the joyful
hope that God's promises to us will be fulfilled.
And by the way...I am getting much better about
waiting until Dec. 17th to decorate for Christmas, even in the privacy of my
own bedroom, over the past 19 years!
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