First Sunday in Advent
December 3, 2006


Have the power outages of 2006 changed your view of advent?

I am one of the lucky ones this time. When the storm came through in the summer, the parish lost power for 4 days. Many remember those hot, hot days. And quasi miraculously, the power came back in time for the 150th anniversary celebration with the Archbishop. This time, thanks be to God, I was graced not to lose power at the rectory at all. (The Newman Center is another story...) But I know that many people are still without, and still waiting. I know some who continue to brave it out in their homes – 40 degrees when they get out of bed in the am... woof!

It’s an interesting kind of waiting – for power to be restored. You really can’t do much to hasten that moment. Even the electric company folks can’t short circuit the process. (pardon the current pun!) Either you have power or you don’t, but you know that it is vital to have it on the cold days of a St. Louis winter. If there is a grace to this kind of waiting, it is this. This is one of the ways where I come to know my dependence on others. I need the people who run the power plants who send it to the people manning the substations, who send it to the people who send to the lines that connect it to me. Though I have never met them, I know I absolutely need them for survival. I could have all the money in the world (Plaza Frontenac was without power on Saturday) and it wouldn’t matter. Your money won’t buy you the infrastructure repairs needed. You still need those linemen to connect, one by one, the wires that tap you back into the source of the power.

So, there are three things I am letting the power outages teach me about this season of Advent.
1) There is a kind of powerlessness I need to experience to draw me into a knowledge of my dependence on God. It is easy to be lulled into a presumption that electricity will always be there, that heat will always be there, that water will always be there – so much so that you don’t think about them (except when you pay the bills). It is also easy to forget our absolute need for God in every moment. We cruise on spiritual auto-pilot. Of course God will be there. Just like the electricity. Once again we are reminded it is not always so. Let this storm and the changes in your lifestyle you have to experience because of it draw you into the knowledge of your need for God this advent.
2) I need to be tapped into a source of power. Just as it is vital for my furnace and refrigerator, so it is important for me. That source of power is called prayer and the sacraments. Find ways to be tapped into that source.
3) And finally, in the via negativa , I do need to say that Advent waiting is not like waiting for power to come back on. There is not much most of us can do to bring the electricity back. It is a passive waiting. Advent however, has nothing passive about it. We are invited to hasten the day of the Lord’s return. Paul tells us to conduct ourselves in ways to please God. Luke warns us to not let our hearts become drowsy, but rather be vigilant, be on the lookout. It is a waiting that reaches out to the poor, that shelters the homeless, that protects the weak, that clothes the naked. It is a waiting that wraps our human love around the world’s human experience of suffering, just like the divine love wrapped itself in our human suffering in the advent of Jesus. If that kind of loving was good enough for Jesus, then it is good enough for me.

What can you learn from a set of storms and power outages about Advent? Hopefully enough to make us a people who cry: Come Lord Jesus, and then who have the sense to work for the thing we pray for…