Advent Reflection for Week 1

Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. (Luke 21:34)

This warning of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel was heard in many churches this past weekend, the start of the sacred season of Advent. Jesus is imploring, “Wake up, open wide your eyes!” Not as deer in headlights, but as people alive in holy awareness! Wake up to the small blessings that pass through our daily life like streams of fresh water. Wake up to the manifold opportunities to be a simple force of good in our daily encounters. Wake up to the ways we are withholding that good, contributing to the world’s ills. Wake up to the ways our anxieties and worries constrict us into fear-filled creatures. Wake up to the knowledge that we are loved unconditionally.

Our lives are short. Whether one lives to 10 or 100, in the scope of things life really. is. short. So while briefly bound to this earth may we rise to heaven in holy awareness and sacred action.

Jim Smith, Benedictine, director, mission integration