Finding God in the Everyday of Advent

For the past few years I have found it difficult to find religious Christmas cards that express God’s unfolding story of love for us.  Ironically, when I do find the quality of cards that I am looking for, such cards are often placed on sale suggesting that they are less desirable. Have we forgotten the true reason for this season?    

Advent is a season for us to desire God’s presence in the everyday.  By garnering God’s love for us we become signs of that love.  Henry Nouyen, the Dutch-born Catholic priest, once said that “you are what you love”.  Advent offers us the occasion to be bearers and sharers of God’s love; to prepare our hearts for the coming for of the one  who loved us by sending us His Son.  We need to intentionally encounter God’s loving presence in the everyday moments of life.  By placing a Nativity scene, or crèche, in a meaningful place in our homes, we remember God and our faith as we shape our desires and actions this season to be an Advent people who love. So as I search for the fitting Christmas card to send to loved ones and friends, I will look upon the Nativity scenes around me each day and know the wonders of God's love. 

Vocation Awareness Week--Responding to the Needs of the Times

     National vocation awareness week is an opportunity to recognize how we are to respond to the needs of our times by developing our particular skills and placing them at the service of others. John Bosco identified with disadvantaged young people while studying at the Pastoral Institute in Turin, Italy.  This experience prepared him for helping young people migrate from peasant farming communities to urban life.  Joseph Cafasso, a professor at the Pastoral Institute showed John Bosco the ropes on how to sharpen his skills to meet the needs of youth in prison. 

     John learned from Cafasso how to develop the proper “life skills” to win over the hearts of these  street-wise youth.  Initially youth would treat Cafasso with disdain and ridicule, however, through patient endurance Cafasso won their hearts over with genial affection and Christian zeal.  He connected with the young by handing out fruit and rolls to the young inmates while challenging them to deepen their faith so that they would look to a life beyond their incarceration.  This style of being there for youth enabled them to yearn for a life better lived.

November Remberance--Living Well & Preparing Well

     Given the upcoming November remembrance for the deceased, my thoughts turn to John Bosco’s loss of his close seminarian companion Louis Comollo.  Louis had a knack for living out the virtuous life which rubbed off on John as they spent time together hiking, studying, or critiquing one another’s homilies.  A mutuality of friendship formed between them as John helped Louis in his studies while Louis helped John with the practice of virtue, a desire for the interior life.

      During a vacation they went for a hike and took in a panoramic view of the meadows and vineyards.  Looking over the valley it was evident that the harvest would be lean making it a tough year for farmers.  Comollo looked at the leanness as a metaphor for their sinfulness while Bosco expressed hope for a more plentiful harvest of grapes.  Louis then said, “You will drink from it,” but I am looking to a better vintage".  At this, Bosco asked Louis if he was talking about paradise.  Comollo said that while he had no guarantee that he would go to heaven, he had a burning desire to taste it.  When he said this he was filled with joy and being fully healthy, he returned to the seminary.

      Unfortunately Comollo's heath diminished, he becomes ill and died.  Given the human depth of this friendship, John is severely shaken by the loss and nearly dies himself.   This near encounter serves as a lesson that John must prepare well for death by living his life with meaning and purpose as if any moment might be his last.  Further, John made a pact with Comollo that whoever died first would inform the other about heaven.  One night loud noises wake the seminarians from their sleep and John hears the familiar voice of his friend saying, “Bosco, I am saved!”  As a result, John would go through a period of depression. 

     John learned from these events to deepen his respect for the mystery of death while teaching others to live well as a means to prepare for the moment of their own death.   

Vocation Awareness Day at Franciscan University

October 10 was the annual awareness day in Steubenville, Ohio at Franciscan University.  The event brought together 80 religious communities and diocese from across the United States to accommodate those considering a call to religious life or the priesthood.

The Salesian booth actively engaged participants who felt an attraction to Don Bosco’s pedagogy of charity.  Many home-schooled families attended the event as a religious field day to encourage their children to learn more and be open to such a vocation.

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Lectio Divina--A Guide to the Light

The practice of lectio divina sets into motion a yearning to be in union with God in the everyday.  Lectio offers tangible ways to look for and encounter God despite all that goes on around us.  Many have adapted lectio to fit their own needs and circumstances to ‘hunker down’ with God.  

We need to integrate life with faith and faith with life in order to discover the vocation that God has “treasured” us with.  Pope Francis in his address to the Assembly of Congregation for Clergy said that a vocation must be discovered so that it can be “taken to the light” and shared with others (Vat. City, Oct. 3, 201, Zenit.org).   

In the call narrative of John’s gospel (1:38-39), the disciples discover the underpinnings of their vocation when Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?”  They respond by asking where Jesus stays and then Jesus invites them to come and see.  After they abide with Jesus, they invite Peter to the light.   Meeting Jesus is a “life to faith process” for discovering the treasure of one’s vocation, actualizing it, and then inviting others to the light.  The relational character of encountering Jesus transmits faith dialogically such that it taps the heart with the light of Christ.