By Father Casey

In honor of Advent, I've been spending more time reading the prophets this December and less time reading the news. Sometimes we need to look up from our immediate reality to see the distant horizon toward which we're journeying. Sometimes we need to be reminded that all that weighs us down today will one day be a distant memory. The prophets are good at that. They lift our gaze from what is to what will be.

The prophets were poets of profound imagination. They could see what others couldn't. They could envision what isn't yet, but one day will be. They spoke of the ineffable, of wonderful and sacred mysteries, of hope and redemption. Poets know how to speak of such things.

One day God will come, they said, and not in spirit only, or as a lovely idea. One day God will fill our reality, and all that we know will be transformed. Being poets, they spoke in metaphors.

Rivers will run in the desert
Lions will lie down with lambs.
Burial shrouds will become tablecloths
and funeral biers will become banquet tables.

We will sit atop a great mountain, they said, but rather than being breathless at the climb or only momentarily refreshed by a lovely view, we will realize that the mountain is the fullness of the Lord's presence, and we need never descend it again.

When Isaiah wrote his prophetic poetry around 750 BCE, was he describing current reality? Certainly not. If we think the world is a mess today, we could hardly imagine the world of Isaiah. But that's the thing about hope. Hope is not limited by what can be seen. Hope sees what is not yet, but still is "surely coming." Hope is more than optimism, which blithely assumes "everything will work out," but is instead deep faith in the goodness of a loving God.

And as we hope, we wait.

Too bad for us that we have forgotten how. Not so long ago, waiting was simply a lost art, but in our age of constant stimulation and instant gratification, waiting is not merely neglected but scorned. Waiting is wasting time, and there are few things as awful to a modern American than to have your time wasted.

Which is why we need Advent. And by "Advent," I don't mean the days in December when we run around in a frenzy of errands, obligations, and enjoyments. I mean Advent, as in watching and waiting for God. Advent is the Church's reminder that waiting may be hard, but it is also holy. It is not doing nothing, but turning the soil in which the seeds of contemplation can grow. Waiting is when we stop doing for ourselves long enough to start paying attention to what God is doing for us. Waiting is when we follow the prophet's example and lift our gaze above what is in front of us to a distant and more beautiful horizon.

Think about it this way. Christmas – and by that I mean, December 25 – will come one way or another. You don't have to do anything and it will be here in a dozen more sleeps. But Christmas – and by that I mean the experience of waking to the reality of Christ's birth and beginning to comprehend the wonderful and sacred mystery of God-With-Us – that is something that truly only happens to those who wait and watch. That's what the gospels tell us!

When Jesus was born, who noticed? The busy people hustling around the marketplace, or the shepherds in their seeming idleness in the fields? And did the important people with lots of places to be and people to see realize the Savior had come, or was it some strange stargazers who spent their evenings seeking signs from heaven? And was it the impressively religious people in the Temple who recognized the messiah in Mary's arms, or was it Simeon and Anna, who had quietly waited for decades to see their salvation?

We need to wait like Isaiah, trusting in the Lord even when the world is in turmoil.

We need to wait like the magi, looking to the heavens when others have grown bored or distracted.

We need to wait like the shepherds, learning to be quiet long enough to hear the angels' voices.

We need to wait like Anna and Simeon, holding onto faith when we are tempted to abandon it.

We need to wait with hope, because God is always acting. God is always loving. God is always coming. As Isaiah puts it,

Behold, I am about to do a new thing:
now it brings forth.
Do you not perceive it? (43:19)

Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.

Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
"Be strong, do not fear!

Here is your God.
He will come and save you." (35:3-4)