Advent Waiting

I was pointing our house out to a friend this evening after our Justice Movie night held in the parish hall next door.  "It's the one without Christmas lights," I said.  He looked across the street at the other convent (Dominican sisters live there - yes it is a two convent neighborhood).  "The other Sisters don't have Christmas lights either," he said.  "That's ironic."  "Actually," I said, "it's because it's still Advent."  We have an advent wreath on our prayer table.  We won't be decorating the house until after we've lit the 4th candle on Sunday.  That's how we roll.

Advent is such a short precious and powerful season.  It can go by before you know it--you have to pay attention to the anticipation or you might miss it in the midst of Christmas crazyness.

In our world, waiting is something that we've pretty much given up on.  In the words of Veruca Salt, "I want it now!"  Add to that the commercialization and secularization of our Christmas traditions, with Christmas lights going up after Halloween and coming down on December 26th (when Christmas is just starting!), and it can lead to confusion.

I'm sure some of our neighbors think it odd that the Catholic nuns in the neighborhood don't exhibit the Christmas Spirit.  They probably think it's equally odd that once we get our decorating acts together, we leave our decorations up until the 1st week of January.  Epiphany, what's that?

I don't mean this post to be a rant against anything in particular, but rather an opportunity to wait in the spirit of Advent.  We rejoice this third week of Advent.  We anticipate the O Antiphons which will start in a few days!  And then, yes, Christmas will come.