I’d like to start by pointing out the fine work that Joan Nuth and Chris Schenk do on the "Women and the Word" column. The one thing I would stress is: although these reflections on the day’s readings are written by women, they are really for everybody. If you’ve been skipping them, you really have been missing out on a very special gift to all of us. See Joan’s comments on Advent for an example of what they’ve been doing right along.

Another reminder about tonight’s Communication Committee meeting — and a correction. It is set for 7 p.m. at John Lucic's house, 1484 Elbur Ave., in Lakewood. John’s number is 221-5017 — I had one of the digits wrong last time. RSVP if you can.

Note all the Advent and Christmas activities at Malachi’s. Participating helps to create a sense of community. Two dates to reserve: Dec. 21 following the 12:30 liturgy, decorating the church followed by caroling in the neighborhood; and Jan. 4, an Epiphany celebration and dessert.

Meanwhile Kay Vine said there is a need for job leads for Shair, the father of the Somali refugee family we are sponsoring. Call Gary Pritts (228-6272) if you know of any. The Ali family is used to a much more communal way of life. Our lifestyles tend to be somewhat isolated by comparison. They would welcome more visitors, especially moms with kids who can stop by in the morning and spend time with Medina, the mother. Call Kay (521-5836) for details.

After a nine-pager last issue, this one is a little quieter. Thanks to Joan Nuth, John Lucic and Kay for sending in articles. A blessed Advent to everyone.

Advent celebrates three expectations of the Christ. First, we remember past expectation: from the perspective of Christian fulfillment we recall that the world waited many centuries, longing for redemption, before Christ appeared in our midst. Second, we are aware of a future expectation: we await Christ’s coming in glory to bring God’s redemptive work to its final consummation at the end of time. But the third form of expectation is the one closest to each of us now — our present expectation: we await Christ’s special coming to each of us as the bearer of grace, love, hope, joy and peace into our daily, often hum-drum existence. Advent allows us to pause and become more conscious of the deep longing we each have in us for a transformation that only Christ can bring.

Advent symbolism helps us to give voice to this longing for Christ. Like the people to whom Baruch wrote, we too long to "take off the garment of ... sorrow and affliction ... and ... put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God." We long that our "valleys [be] filled up, to make level ground, so that [we] may walk safely." We hope that through Jesus, God will lead us "with joy, ... with mercy and righteousness."

Paul’s prayer for the Philippians is another articulation of this deep longing we find within ourselves. Because of Jesus, this longing is not in vain; thus, Paul voices it as the confidence of Christian hope "that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion." What is the "good work" Paul speaks of but our incorporation into Christ? Our becoming more like the human Jesus through incorporation into his mystical body? For the longing for Christ is really a longing for human completeness, for human wholeness, for human fulfillment — which is only found in union with God through Christ.

Finally, Advent brings us the symbol of John the baptizer announcing to an oppressed people that their salvation is nigh. John, "the voice of one crying out in the wilderness" reminds us not only of our own personal longing for God, but also of the longing of the oppressed peoples of our world for liberation, for justice. We long that not only we, but "all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

If we do nothing else during this Advent, let us try to still ourselves enough to get in touch with that deep longing for God that is in our hearts. Let us quiet ourselves enough to be able to contemplate the longing for justice of oppressed peoples. Let us pray to God out of these longings. This will help us gain a perspective on life that allows us to keep our priorities straight.

There is a passage I like from Rainer Maria Rilke’s "Letters to a Young Artist." I offer it to you for your reflection this Advent. It is a fitting passage for this column, since it refers to our participation in Christmas as a way of sharing in the birthing of Christ. Christ needs to be born anew in each of us. This is what our deep Advent longing is all about. This is what being transformed means — that Christ may be born in us, come to life in each of us, touch others through us. Rilke gives eloquent voice to our longing for the present, daily coming of Christ to each of us.

Why do you not think of him
as the coming one, imminent from all eternity;
the future one, the final fruit of a tree whose leaves we are?

What keeps you from projecting his birth into times
that are in process of becoming

And living your life like a painful and beautiful day in the history
of a great gestation?

For do you not see how everything that happens
keeps on being a beginning?

And could not it be his beginning,
since beginning is in itself always so beautiful?

If he is the most perfect, must not the lesser be before him,
so that he can choose himself out of fullness and overflow?

Must he not be the last,
in order to encompass everything within himself?

And what meaning would we have
if he whom we long for had already been?

Celebrate Christmas in this devout feeling:
that perhaps he needs this very fear of life from you
in order to begin;

These very days of your transition are perhaps the time
when everything in you is working at him.

Be patient and without resentment
and think that the least we can do is to make his becoming
not more difficult for him
than earth makes it for spring when it wants to come.

And be glad and confident.

May Christ be formed and shaped anew in each of us during this season of expectation, to be born for others in the year to come. Happy Advent!

"Grandma," the little boy asked, "what do you do with your eyes when they aren’t looking at anything?" We all laughed uproariously as this anecdote was shared at a recent gathering. As the laughter subsided, the immense implications of this young one’s wisdom began to sink in. What do we do with our eyes when we aren’t looking at "anything"? What do we choose to look at? Are we always so busy looking at what we think is the right thing to watch that we miss the really important stuff of life? What is the "anything" we choose to focus our eyes on?

Advent: a coming. We wait and watch for the One who is to come. But how do we watch and wait? And for whom? To help little children understand Advent and Christmas, many families refer to this season as the time to prepare for Jesus’ "birth."

A typical first reaction to any newborn is to coo and use "baby-talk," for we are somehow disarmed of our regular defenses. And so it is right that Jesus first came to us as a baby nearly 2,000 years ago. Many of us, however, carry well into adulthood the image that the One we wait and look for is still that tiny (controllable) babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Why don’t we allow Jesus to grow up? Why do we prepare for his coming time and again as if it were the first day of Jesus’ human existence? If we allow Jesus to grow and change, then the way we prepare for his coming will have to grow and change as well. A teenage or adult Jesus confronts us in very different ways that may make us quite uncomfortable but will ultimately help us live the Gospel more faithful in today’s world.

The scripture readings during this special season are full of wonderful imagery and helps for our spiritual journey. "Prepare the way of God!" "Stay awake!" "Go up on a high mountain ... shout with a loud voice ... shout without fear ... ‘Here is your God!’" "God has clothed me with a robe of salvation and wrapped me in a mantle of justice ..." "Do not stifle the Spirit, do not despise the prophetic gift." "May the God of peace make you perfect in holiness." "I am the servant of God. Let it be done to me as you say." The Word of God to use these days stands in stark contrast to the culture in which we find ourselves totally immersed. The Word of God calls each of us to be a John the Baptist, a herald of God’s coming among us. The Word of God calls us to be countercultural in our preparations and in all our living.

Our culture’s interpretation of Christmas (it doesn’t even recognize Advent) is based on greed. We are pushed and shoved into a frenetic pace of buying and decorating. Our eyes are drawn to the glitter and gilt with which consumerism dazzles us. Yet a piece of us deep inside wishes for something else to focus on. Each year we seem to be pushed and shoved even faster, so that we are actually relieved when Dec. 26 arrives — it is over! And yet we have that lingering, uncomfortable feeling that perhaps what we looked at wasn’t the really important stuff.

Advent and Christmas are about the Incarnation — the recognition of, seeing and focusing on God’s presence in the life within and around us. Advent becomes like a lens that helps the eyes of our heart zoom in on God’s presence in specific ways so we can learn to truly celebrate God-among-us.

The only way I know to help my eyes look at the "anything" of Advent is to make conscious efforts to slow down, to wait and watch in anticipation. Expect to see Christ born in your life this very day. When we slow down, we can see more easily what has been in front of us all along. Then we can see the face of Christ in the homeless person we’ve been passing on the street. In the patient clerk dealing with a mob of complaining customers. And yes, even in the one who complains. For the mystery of the Advent of our God is that God comes to us in ways and times and people we least expect.

To choose consciously to slow down means we must say no to certain things. In our culture we have a hard time saying no because we want it all. The Gospel, however, tells us true life is a paradox: to have it all, we must lose it all for God’s sake. To slow down and wait and watch in anticipation is to say no to our cultural "gods" — especially the god of consumerism. The more we have, the more we want, then the more we feel a need to protect and defend what we have. And so other "isms" are born or embellished by consumerism: elitism, racism, nationalism, militarism, sexism — the list goes on. By saying no to consumerism in the ways we can, we begin to focus on our seeing more clearly.

The challenge of Advent is to look beyond the consumerist glitter to the real face of God among us. If we do this, we will never be the same again. We will recognize that God comes to us not only in comforting and comfortable ways such as a tiny babe. But also in disquieting ways such as the single parent struggling to make ends meet. The rain forest crying to be saved. The illegal alien escaping death squads. Those who go hungry because the nation puts its resources into weaponry. Those oppressed because of their race, gender, creed, sexual orientation or economic status. Those suffering at the hands of a system that defines justice as "vengeance" and "revenge."

It all seems so overwhelming! Where do we start? Here are some suggestions for observing Advent in a "slow down" mode. Choose or adapt the one or two you will use this year.

Each Sunday of Advent as you light the next candle of your Advent wreath, include in your lighting prayer a person, situation or need you’ve seen in the news that reflects the face of God for you. If you do this ritual with your family or a group, invite each one to do the same.

Whenever you go shopping (grocery, clothes, whatever), ask yourself: "Is this something I really need or just want?" Our culture doesn’t make a distinction. Base your choices on need.

Compose your own "litany of thanks." Pray it often. Being grateful and expressing that gratitude for what we already have helps us reduce our perceived "need" for more.

Choose to give alternative gifts this year, ones you make yourself or perhaps a gift subscription or membership in an organization that works to make a positive impact in social justice issues.

Make the time to make your own Christmas cards or greetings. You’ll be amazed at the creativity you have inside waiting to be shared and the creativity it sparks in others.

Spend your day off (or make the time) baking bread (no bread machines, please), reflecting on the whole process, making it a meditative prayer. Give the loaves away as alternative gifts to your neighbors. This could be a solitary project or one to do as a family or group.

Choose to do some volunteer work in a situation with which you normally do not interact — for example, a soup kitchen, a local agency that helps HIV-positive individuals, a literacy council. Journal reflectively about your experiences and how you have seen God born there. Use these to compose your own book of Advent prayers.

Choose to decorate your home meditatively for the season. Do a little each week to allow time for you to ponder the images from the Advent readings and truly to experience Advent before Christmas. Pace yourself so you can enjoy the entire season (through Epiphany and the feast of the Baptism of Jesus).

Purchase a live tree that can be decorated as a Jesse tree during Advent and then for Christmas. After the holidays, donate it to a local park or group (perhaps your parish, a nursing home, a retreat center) that could benefit from planting more trees on its property.

Bake a "birthday cake for Jesus" to share at your celebration on Christmas day. As you share the cake, create a spontaneous prayer of gratitude by each participant sharing a memory or experience of "seeing" Christ for each decade of his or her life. (A thirtysomething person would relate four instances of seeing the face of Christ: one from preteen years, another from adolescence, a third from the 20s and a fourth from the current decade of life.)

If making gifts for everyone on your list is too much, start out within your smaller family or group circle by drawing names for a gift exchange at the beginning of Advent. Have this be the gift that is homemade or that taps into your creativity and is a source of your own meditation during these four weeks.

If a Nativity set is part of your decorations this season, delay placing the infant Jesus in the manger until Christmas morning. During Advent, invite your family or group members to place in and around the manger symbols of how they have seen Christ born. Do this as often as you like. You may decide not to place the Jesus statue in the scene but to continue with these symbols through Epiphany. Each week, during your prayer or ritual time, have each person share one of the symbols he or she placed there.

What do you do with your eyes when they aren’t looking at anything?

"Sir, we ought to teach the people that they are doing wrong in worshipping the images and pictures in the temple."

Ramakrishna: "That’s the way with you Calcutta people: you want to teach and preach. You want to give millions when you are beggars yourselves ... Do you think God does not know that he is being worshipped in the images and pictures? If a worshipper should make a mistake, do you not think God will know his intent?"

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,

To make music in the heart.

The judge is judged and is silent; the invisible is seen and is not confounded; the incomprehensible is grasped and is not indignant at it; the immeasurable is contained in a measure and makes no opposition; the impassable suffers and does not avenge its own injury; the immortal dies and complains not; the celestial is buried and bears it with an equal mind. What, I say, is this mystery? The creature is transfixed with amazement.

"This interior life in the beginning is very arduous; one finds therein only renunciation, death to self, to one’s own judgment. But as soon as one has given the good God full freedom to act, He assists the soul which is disposed to him in complete generosity ... I assure you, that when this step is taken, the interior life is paradise on earth."

"Take some poor and unfruitful year in which hunger has carried off many thousands. If the barns of the rich were searched at the end of the year, I maintain that enough grain would be found to feed everyone, and to save those who died from the famine and from the plague caused by the famine. How easily the bare needs of life might be provided, if money, which is meant to procure us the necessities of life, did not itself deter us! Certainly the rich know this..."

"If you would be wise, ask Him who is Wisdom. When it is too dark for you to see, seek Christ, for He is the Light. Are you sick? Have recourse to Him who is both doctor and health ... Are you afraid of this or that? Remember that on all occasions He will stand by your side like an angel. If you find it hard to meet face to face the high majesty of the Only-begotten, do not lose hope. Remember, He was made man to make it easier for you to approach him."

Every Sunday after Mass, many Community folks eagerly head for our weekly fix of coffee, tea, and friends. It’s a place where we get our strokes for the week and all the love and support we need. Of course, this is only possible due to the hard work of many volunteers. Next Sunday, Dec. 14, is the day to show our appreciation. When you see someone wearing a red carnation, give them a big thank you for making our Sundays great.

"I asked the earth, and it said, ‘I am not he!’ All things confessed the same. I asked the sea and the deeps, and among living animals the things that creep, and they answered, ‘We are not your God! Seek you higher than us!’ ... I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars: ‘We are not the God whom you seek,’ they said. To all the things that stand around the doors of my flesh I said, ‘Tell me of my God!’ ... With a mighty voice they cried out, ‘He made us!’ My question was the gaze that I turned on them; their answer was their beauty."