Happy Second Sunday of Advent, friends. Today, we’re continuing my mini “Advent retreat.” It will conclude on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, which this year happens to be Christmas Eve. It’s never too late to join in on these reflections, so if you’re not yet a full subscriber, I hope you consider becoming one. You’ll then have access to last week’s reflection and everything else I’ve written for this newsletter. Gift subscriptions are also available if you know someone who you think could benefit from these newsletters in the coming year.
Praying you have a blessed Second Sunday of Advent and that your house is less chaotic than ours!
Readings
Reading 1: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 85:9-10-11-12, 13-14
Reading 2: 2 Peter 3:8-14
Gospel: Mark 1:1-8
Reflection
On Friday night, I forgot to take out my contacts. Five years ago, this would have been no big deal. I slept in my contacts all the time back then (I know, I know, very bad). These days, however, sleeping in my contacts means my vision takes a nosedive, and I can’t read a thing without my cheaters, which are still relatively new to me and which I find incredibly annoying.
“I hate getting old,” I muttered to Chris as I stumbled out of bed, gearing up for a day of saying, “Where are my reading glasses?” 500 times before noon.
I don’t really hate getting old though. I hate some things about getting old—the wacky hormones, the weight gain, the declining vision. But I am grateful for other things, such as the growing gentleness for myself and other sinners that has crept up on me in recent years.
Today is Repentance Sunday. That’s not an official name from the Church or anything like that; it’s just how I’ve come to think of the Second Sunday of Advent, where the Scripture readings always focus on repentance. “Prepare the way of the Lord,” we’re told this year through Mark’s Gospel. “Make straight his paths.”
Almost three decades ago, when I was still a relative newbie at walking with the Lord, I thought I had done a pretty good job of fulfilling those commands. After all, when I first gave my heart to Christ in a deliberate, conscious way, I turned from sin and turned towards Him. I repented of all sorts of wrongdoing, great and small, and tried earnestly to walk in the light. I knew I still had some growing to do, but I felt like the heavy lifting had already been done.
Soon enough, however, that way of thinking got beaten up badly by reality. Yes, I was not committing all sorts of flashy sins—the kind of sins people write Gothic novels about. There was no fornicating or adultery, murder or theft in my life. But there was an awful lot of selfishness and thoughtlessness. There were epic amounts of anger, pride, vanity, and greed. And oh the gossip—there was lots of that, nestled right up next to a heart full of judgement.
If felt like the more I sought to be close to Christ, the more sin I saw in my heart and life. And it didn’t just grieve me to the core; it filled me with loathing and hate. Not for others, but for myself. Every time I did or said something wrong, I would verbally flog myself, saying the cruelest, most unkind things in my mind and despairing of ever “being better.” I felt like the most hopeless and lost of causes. God had been so good to me. He had given me so much. And yet I couldn’t manage to give Him what He asked for in today’s Second Reading from Saint Peter: a soul “without spot or blemish.”
This went on for decades. No one who disliked me could be a harsher critic of me than I was of myself. My internal dialogue was abusive. And I wish I could say there was some epiphany moment where it all stopped, but there wasn’t. I struggle with this problem still. It has gotten better, though. I have gotten gentler—not in an instant, just slowly, gradually, with the passing of the years. It has been, in a sense, a gift of age. Or, more accurately, it’s been a gift of time.
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