January 23, 2009
The Christian Journey
Every Advent-Christmas season is a time of initiation
BY FATHER JIM SAUER
Children sometimes express how difficult it is for them to comprehend how quickly Jesus grows up during the Christmas Season! Born on Dec. 25, some three weeks later John baptizes him at the age of 30. Our Christian faith is indeed rooted in history. If it were not, it would be nothing but fanciful imagination! However, we cannot allow ourselves to approach the Christian feasts only as “nostalgic” remembrances of the past.
The Advent-Christmas Season is very much about us who live in the beginning of the 21st century. A discovery I made in 1988, while studying St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises at Creighton University, is that the Advent-Christmas Season is comparable to the RCIA’s Inquiry Stage. Therefore, as the assembly enters into the celebration of the Advent-Christmas Season, we experience a re-awakening of our awareness of God’s love for us in Christ, which serves to deepen our commitment to Christ.
The inspiring Scriptures from the Hebrew Prophets reveal God’s promise of a Savior to free us from the power of darkness, from all that seeks to destroy the human person and spirit — evil, sin and death. God promised a Savior, not out of a sense of obligation, but from God’s over-flowing love for humanity. The Advent-Christmas Scriptures invite us to be “caught up into the mystery of God’s love for us.”
Aware of God’s overwhelming love for us, something can happen within us. We may experience a movement to prayer, worship and adoration. Realizing Jesus’ sacrifice in leaving heaven’s glory to walk our human journey of life, we may recognize our sinfulness, pettiness and refusals to be generous in loving. God’s love calls us away from that path to a new life in Christ.
Knowing we are not perfect, we fathom Christianity’s deepest mystery — Christ (indeed the Trinity) desires to make his dwelling within us (“sanctifying grace”). Christ is born in us. We are Temples of God’s Spirit and the dwelling place of Christ. We did nothing to deserve God’s gracious gift of Christ. We need but to open our hearts and minds to him and his gospel each day, strive to be faithful to him, and be grateful for so lavish a gift.
Here are the connections between the Inquiry Stage and the Advent-Christmas Season as found in the RCIA ritual. “The (Inquiry) is a time of evangelization, that is, the living God and Jesus Christ are proclaimed . . . Thus those . . . not yet Christians, their hearts opened by the Holy Spirit, may believe and be freely converted to the Lord and commit themselves sincerely to him” (Paragraph 36). Our inquirers thus “feel drawn into the mystery of God’s love and called away from sin” (Paragraph 37).
The RCIA ritual spells out some “signs” to look for in Inquirers when they are being drawn into the mystery of God’s love — “an intention to change their lives . . . some stirrings of repentance, call upon God in prayer, some sense and experience of the company and spirit of Christians and the Church through contact” (Paragraph 42). (These are “initial” experiences.)
Those privileged to enter the Church through the RCIA experience their new birth in Christ throughout the entire time of formation beginning with the Inquiry phase. We, those of us baptized most likely as infants, “re-experience” our re-birth in Christ as we enter into the liturgical celebrations of the Church Year, the first being the Advent/Christmas Season.
The Liturgical Year thus continues to be the RCIA for the faithful who openly and actively enter into its celebrations, which can transform us just as formation period is the time of conversion for those joining the Church.