Courtney McGrailFr Martin Delaney
John Shea, the great Christian storyteller, relates the following Advent reflection. When God was making the trees, he gave a gift to each species. But first he set up a contest to determine which gift would be most useful to whom.
He told them: “I want you to stay awake and keep watch over the earth for seven nights.” The young trees were so excited to be trusted with such an important task that the first night they would have found it difficult not to stay awake.
However, the second night was not so easy, and just before dawn a few fell asleep.
On the third night the trees whispered among themselves in an effort to keep from dropping off. Even so it proved too much for some of them. Still more fell asleep on the fourth night.
By the time the seventh night came, the only trees still awake were the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the fir, the holly and the laurel. “What wonderful endurance you have!” God exclaimed. “You shall be given the gift of remaining green forever. You will be the guardians of the forest. Even in the seeming dead of winter, your brother and sister trees will find life protected in your branches.”
Ever since then all the trees and plants lose their leaves and sleep all winter, while the evergreens stay awake.
This story illustrates the two great themes of Advent: wakefulness in the midst of sleepiness and greenness in the midst of barrenness.
Evergreen
In the evergreen trees we find a note of gentle but resolute defiance. The surrounding world may be asleep and barren, but these continue to bear witness. They are sustained not so much by their own determination but by the power of God.
They show us what our role as Christians is. It is to be awake among the sleeping, to be green in the midst of the barren. To bear witness to love in the midst of hate, to peace in the midst of conflict, and to light in the midst of darkness.
Making reality of signs
As I think about preparing in Advent I am reminded of a story I heard many years ago:
A man was lost in the jungle for days: starving and tired, he comes to a clearing where he sees a lovely log cabin with a sign in the window which said: “Fresh homemade bread sold here.” He ran up to the door and knocked on it with great anticipation.
A woman answered the door and the man, pointing to the sign, said: “Can I buy some of your homemade bread please?” The woman smiled and said: “Oh I’m sorry, we only make the signs here.”
So much of what we see in these weeks before Christmas are the signs of realities but not the realities themselves. How much will be spent on gifts to celebrate a baby’s birthday and how many parties will there be to celebrate the same birthday but with little mention of the birthday boy himself?
The challenge for the followers of the birthday boy in this Advent season is to make the outward signs into inward realities. Let’s make Advent real! Then the boy would think that all his birthdays had come together!
Something for everyone! The teacher was very curious about how each of her students’ celebrated Christmas Eve. “Tell me Patrick, what do you do on Christmas Eve?” she asked. Patrick addressed the class. “Well Miss, me and my 12 brothers and sisters go to midnight Mass and we sing hymns, then we come home very late and we put mince pies by the back door and hang up our stockings. Then all excited we go to bed and wait for Father Christmas to come with all our toys.”
“Very nice Patrick, now Jimmy Brown, what do you do?”
“Well Miss, me and my sister go to Church with mum and dad and we sing carols and we get home ever so late. We put biscuits and milk by the chimney and we hang up our stockings. We hardly sleep waiting for Santa Claus to bring our presents.”
Remembering there was a Jewish boy in the class and not wanting to leave him out of the discussion, she asked: “Now Jimmy Cohen, what do you do on Christmas Eve?”
“Well Miss, it’s the same old thing every year. Dad comes home from the office. We all pile into the Rolls and drive to his toy factory. When we get inside we look at all the empty shelves and sing ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’. Then we go to the Bahamas!”