Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, Atchison, Kansas

December 1, 2007
Reflection for the Vigil of the First Sunday of Advent 2007 (Year A)
1 Thess 5:1-11; Matthew 24:37-44

Mary Elizabeth Schweiger, OSB

One day as I was listening to NPR on the radio, the novelist Anne Lamott, was being interviewed. The topic of this particular day had to do with her book: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. One line in particular caught my attention: “Heaven is just a new pair of glasses.” I struggled with this image because I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I remember getting my first pair of reading glasses and trying to get adjusted to them. They were uncomfortable and it seems I was always losing them. I tried cords around my neck and having pairs of glasses in different places. Then the day came when I realized I needed to wear them all the time. Glasses have to be cleaned and adjusted, lenses changed, screws tightened. This all seemed such a bother. However, I am always amazed at how glasses enable me to see more clearly, to read with greater ease, to observe expressions and features on peoples faces, to spot fall colored leaves on a tree and to enjoy the brightness of a shiny dusted table. So maybe glasses aren’t so bad.

This seems a wonderful metaphor for the Advent season. Our readings tonight invite us to stay awake, to pay attention, to be alert in order to see the manifestations of God in our daily lives. We are encouraged to wait patiently and to be ready to meet the Son of God at an unexpected hour. It is a time when it feels like God, the Eternal Optometrist, takes our glasses, makes adjustments, tightens the screws and cleans them so we can see and experience more fully the present moment, the Kingdom that is here and now.

What does that Kingdom look like in the present? We see a lot in our world that is not of God. There are wars and violence happening on a daily basis. People are suffering and dying because of inadequate food, shelter, clothing and water. There is much disease and illness in many countries and nations. Children and women are abused and sold into slavery by their own peoples. Immigrants are being deported daily. Our natural resources are being depleted.

Asked to write a letter to the London Times on “What’s wrong with the world?”, GK Chesterton wrote, “Dear Sirs, I am. Yours truly, GK Chesterton”. Like GK Chesterton, we can also answer “I Am”, “We are” to what is wrong with the world. However, we can use our glasses to see those evils and to look at our world through different lenses. We can see good things that are happening.

Clothing drives, food collections and opportunities to donate money come from almost every faith organization throughout the world and wonderful deeds are being done. Men and women are giving their lives to obtain peace and freedom in our world. Cities like Austin, Texas and many others are developing plans to eliminate homelessness. Organizations are dealing with the unemployed. LCWR regularly speaks out on justice issues and takes on global concerns providing women religious with a corporate voice. Our own ministry at Keeler Women’s Center is responding to the needs of women and children. Sophia Center continues to nurture the faith life of men and women of all denominations. Good things are happening. To paraphrase GK Chesterton “What’s good about our world.” “We are.”

In the Gospel, people were doing ordinary things, eating and drinking, working in the fields, and grinding meal. One person is taken, another is not.

As Gospel people, as Benedictine women, if we are living each moment to the best of our ability, living as if we are children of the Light and of the Day, then death will not come as a surprise for us. If we stay awake, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet the hope of salvation, then we will obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we encourage one another and build up each other, it is just like putting on a new pair of glasses to see the Kingdom in its fullness.

This Advent we are invited to look through new lenses, to see our world as God sees it, to get a glimpse of heaven by living deliberately, lovingly, graciously in the present. We wait for the Lord in anticipation and joy with our clean glasses.

© 2007 Benedictine Sisters
Mount St. Scholastica
Atchison, Kansas