Preparing for Christmas: it’s not parties and shop till you drop

1st Sunday of Advent, Year A
First Reading: Isa 2:1-5
Second Reading: Rom 13:11-14
Gospel Reading: Mt 24:37-44

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” we hear in the popular song.

I do not refer to the advertisements urging us to buy unwanted things for people we hardly know.

I mean that this Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year, and the first Sunday in the season of Advent, when the Church prepares for the birth of Christ, God’s son.

“The night is far gone, the day is near,” St. Paul says. “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy.”

Is this warning necessary? Surely Christmas is a time of peace, when we beat our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks, when no nation lifts up a sword against another?

No. In practice, for many of us, Christmas is a time not of peace, but of “revelling and drunkenness,” “debauchery and licentiousness,” “quarrelling and jealousy.”

Take the question of peace first. At Christmas, families get together.

Do we have to wear our best clothes or be on our best behaviour? Are our everyday manners not good enough? Must we make a special effort? Is the love among family members and relatives – the result of long familiarity – not enough to carry us through?

No. Christmas is a time when we are expected to show affection for our relatives, even if we avoid them the rest of the year because we do not like them or have nothing in common with them.

No merely human love can suffice without the aid of charity. “There is no disguising the fact that this means goodness: patience, self-denial, humility, and the continual intervention of a far higher sort of love than affection, in itself, can ever be,” says C.S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves.

Christmas is not a time of peace just because we ring sleigh bells, sing Christmas carols, and carry out the time-honoured family Christmas rituals. Without God-aided efforts to love our neighbour as ourselves, it will be a time of “quarrelling and jealousy.”

What about “revelling and drunkenness,” “debauchery and licentiousness”?

We celebrate Christmas with parties. Indeed, many of us welcome Christmas Day as a day to sleep off the effects of the previous days’ revelry. When we do get up, we eat and drink too much at Christmas dinner, arguing that Christmas comes only once a year.

Thus we celebrate Christmas in the wrong way; but we also celebrate it at the wrong time.

The Church schedules the season of Advent so that we can put our spiritual house in order for the birth of Christ: calling to mind our sins, repenting, going to confession, making reparation for our wrong-doing, resolving to eliminate from our lives all that prevents us from welcoming Christ into our hearts.

Then, when the day of his birth arrives, we are ready to celebrate it. Indeed, the Church celebrates it with such fervour that her celebration lasts a week: go to Mass and notice how the prayers refer to “this day,” as if Christmas were an eight-day feast.

Today, in our society, people purchase things before they can afford them, enjoy the pleasures of marriage before they are married, and celebrate Christmas before the Baby is born. It may be impossible to avoid parties before Christmas without giving offence, but at least suggest scheduling them after Christmas. Why not host your own parties then, especially if your friends are Christian?

This year, try to spend Advent preparing for Christmas, materially and spiritually. Then you can spend Christmas celebrating Christ’s birth.

In that way, you will not only put Christ back into Christmas, but also put Christmas back into its right place.

Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, with new insights. The whole course is available in written form and, one session per week, in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Father is also teaching the course in person: on Sundays at 2 p.m. in the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, Vancouver (33rd and Willow); and on Mondays at 10 a.m. in St. Anthony’s Church hall, 2347 Inglewood Ave., West Vancouver. Next week’s topic is “Divine Revelation.”

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