There are so many things we do to prepare for major events. Food planned and prepared? Check. Guest list prepared, guests notified, and everything ready to receive them? Check. Did I remember to brush my teeth this morning? … Oh, yeah, check – did that while picking out an outfit and re-arranging where to put the desserts.
Advent – the time preceding Christmas – is a season of anticipation. We are getting ready for the coming of Jesus. There are so many tasks to complete: gift and food lists, shopping, and preparation; communication with various friends and relatives; cleaning extra-deeply for visitors; decorating, decorating, decorating…
But Christmas is more than just a big party. We’re waiting not only for the last guest to arrive, but for the announcement that Christ still chooses to love us to the point of coming down from Heaven to live and die so we may join Him for all eternity. How do you prepare?
Christmas is Coming!
In preparation for Christmas tomorrow, I went to confession yesterday. Confession is a big deal for several reasons, the foremost of which being that it’s our way of showing God that we accept His love that He offered us on the cross.
Confession affects different people in different ways. I vividly remember one of my brothers sitting in the car with me after the family left the confessional; while I was trying so hard to keep my face dry, he let out this blissful sigh because his sins had been wiped clean, and he joked that he felt unnaturally clean – as though cleanliness made him uncomfortable – and needed a good roll in the mud to feel like himself again. Meanwhile, sitting next to him, I felt like doing an examination of conscience was diving into the mud, and that nothing could truly get all the grit out: instead of relief, I felt realization and weight of my guilt, my shame. Often, at least for the remainder of the day, the guilt I’d been cleansed of would eat at me: how could I have turned away from God? How can I make my way back after hurting Him so?
Allowing myself to stay in that place of defeatism is itself sinful (for doubting in God’s mercy). It’s not wrong to feel guilt and shame for having done wrong, but it certainly isn’t right to feel it for making amends.
Jesus lived and died to bring us back to Him: to bring you back to Him, to bring me back to Him. God knows us flawed and He loves us anyway; He came down to love us to the point of death on a cross. He gave us confession as a way to return to Him when we’ve gone astray: we necessarily must diagnose the problems before we can fix them. (Can you imagine a doctor saying, “We don’t know what’s wrong, so we’re gonna perform an onerous surgery to fix it?”) We need to figure out our weaknesses not so we can beat ourselves into submission, but so we can learn to preemptively defeat them.
And this is why we have virtues: to help us know which way to go. God knew we’d need guideposts to help us find our way back to Him. Virtues are directionals to let us know we’re going back toward Him, and sins are directionals letting us know we’re choosing something else over Him. If we love God, we want to be virtuous because it helps us to be close to Him.
I’m happy to report that I’ve gotten better at not dwelling on my faults after confession, though it’s a process I’m still working on. A proper examination of conscience is still guaranteed to make me cry (raw, deep tears). Today, I held most of my tears until making it into the confessional, then weeping bitterly during my penance. But instead of being a mechanism of wallowing in self-loathing, these were different: these tears were a purge of the system and a commitment to doing better.
The process was still physically and emotionally draining, but after, there was some lingering sorrow, but mostly a sense of renewed vigor. I was doing what I could to be ready for Christmas: I couldn’t change what I did wrong, but I could vow to do better next time, to walk closer to the path set before me.
So, I’m ready and eager for Christmas. Gifts are purchased and wrapped, songs practiced, and soul as clean as I can make it in preparation for His birth. How about you? How are your preparations coming along?
