Rite&Reason: Hopeful waiting of Advent has more meaning than ever

Advent throws up many challenges for us this year, perhaps more than ever before. We are waiting for a vaccine, waiting to see when our economic and social freedoms will be fully restored and waiting to see if there is a possibility that we might see our foreign-based children this Christmas.

Waiting to see if there will be another lockdown!

Advent is about waiting. But to our secular minds, never has it seemed so long. The consumerism of our western world is fixated on our individual desires and wants. The concept of waiting seems to be devoid of philosophical, spiritual or religious meaning.

This is not to undervalue at all the human pain that Covid-19 has inflicted on the many who have had to bury their loved ones without a hug or a goodbye, waving forlornly through a window at those whose thoughts or comprehension evades us.

Germany facing renewed lockdown as Covid-19 numbers stall

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Christmas buskers banned from Dublin streets by council over Covid fears

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The Irish Times view on Covid-19 in the United States: a colossal failure

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Vaccination programme begins in Northern Ireland this morning

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Nor is it to forget those who have lost their jobs and slipped off into the silence of the night to quietly and sadly come to terms with an unknown future.

Covid-19 has impacted on people’s personal dignity and has placed great stress on family relations. Parents, especially mothers, have had to play the role of home teacher in lieu of their child’s physical attendance at school. To be forced to work from home – for the most part at the kitchen table – has been physically, psychologically and emotionally challenging for all family members.

Spiritual dimension

Nor can we forget the millions worldwide who have no Covid-19 payments, no money, no tourists and no food. Information technology and state supports may have helped our struggles in the West but for more than half of humanity, such supports are not available.

Patrick Kavanagh's Advent-darkened room may be darker than ever imagined for so many this Christmas. Yet Kavanagh's room has a spiritual dimension that is more in tune with the real meaning of Advent, of waiting, of the coming of God, and looking anew at who and what God is and became.

We ponder upon this great mystery of Christmas and we are attentive and alert to the second coming of God

Advent is a time of anticipation and preparation for the first coming of God at Christmas. We ponder upon this great mystery of Christmas and we are attentive and alert to the second coming of God at some point in the future. We ask, why this great miracle of the incarnation happened? The incarnation is the embodiment of God and Son in human flesh as Jesus Christ.

Advent is special because it is the liturgical season where hope is restored. Hope is often the forgotten virtue. Pope Francis focuses on the importance of hope during Advent calling it "a hope that does not disappoint because it is founded on the word of God . . . because the Lord never disappoints. He is faithful!"

Anxious consumerism

Advent helps us reflect on the deep longing that defines human existence. That longing, that restlessness, may always be with us. Complete contentment may always be elusive, total joy out of reach, but Advent helps us to draw deeply on the hope of another world, another coming, a final union with God even if that waiting, that anticipation is made more difficult in a culture of anxious consumerism.

It is a gospel of hope, a belief that there is nothing on this earth that cannot be managed or endured as long as we know that God is journeying with us.

There is nothing on this earth that cannot be managed or endured as long as we know that God is journeying with us

We are often told that we might let the voices of the saints offer us wisdom and hope, and avoid what CS Lewis called “chronological snobbery”. The saints journey with us and inspire us to reach the ultimate goal of eternity with God.

But the most important of all is Mary, remembering as we do, that today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Mary is central to the story of Advent, of waiting, hoping and trusting. Her role in the incarnation is paramount since in and through her humanity, God choose to enter our world.

Advent is the new year for Christians. It is the season of waiting, in 2020, more than in any other year of recent times. The waiting of Advent, like the waiting of the return of post Covid-19 “normality”, creates a unique space and time in which to rethink what we really want for ourselves in this world and in the next.

Finola Bruton is chairperson of the Parish Pastoral Council of Dunboyne & Kilbride in the Diocese of Meath