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Advent
2002
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It begins all over again, the Church’s Year of Grace that
from Advent to Advent sanctifies all history. Once again it will
set before us the great events of the birth, life, death, and
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Once again each Sunday
it will summon us to our Christian assemblies where we will meet
the Lord in His Gospel and in His Eucharistic Presence. We do
not know what the next twelve months of human history will bring
or what will happen in our own lives or in the lives of our loved
ones, but the Year of Grace will remind us to see everything
in the light of Jesus Christ who has died, is risen, and will
come again. The only thing we can take with us into the unknown
future is the faith that Jesus Christ is Lord also of all that
is to come.
Our salvation accomplished in the past is real. It took place
at a certain time in the course of human events as well as in
certain geographical places associated with it. Yet this salvation
event in the past is still in the process of unfolding and we
believe there is a crowning fulfillment of it yet to come. The
history of God’s salvation is a matter of the present and
the future as much as it is of the past.
The Year of Grace announced and celebrated by the Church in
the annual round of Sundays and Festivals interprets and interacts
with the unfolding events of contemporary history. The hour hand
on a clock is in some ways the least noticeable. The inexperienced
eye of a child would undoubtedly find the more rapid movement
of the second hand more fascinating. Yet it is the hour hand
that marks the deeper direction of time and sweeps the day from
its beginning to its end. Without the hour hand the repetitious
circling of the second hand would be essentially meaningless.
In a similar way our Christian faith imparts a deeper meaning
to time. The rapidly moving flow of current events catches our
attention easily, but we will not understand them rightly if
we do not pay attention to the great hour hand of God’s
history. There is an "end" to time not just in terms
of quantity but in the sense that time has a goal, purpose, and
meaning. The varied and confused events of time must–and
will–be ordered to this "end."
The Christian faith is an unfolding truth, not a fading memory.
As Christians we need not worry that history is taking us further
and further away from the Biblical events because it is at the
same time carrying us closer to the Christ of the glorious parousia.
Even the early Christians who lived much closer to the incarnation
than
we do still looked as much, if not more, to the Christ who
is to come again. We envy them because they lived so much closer
to the historical Christ; but they would envy us because we live
so much closer to the Christ to come in glory.
We live thus in a certain state of tension between what has
already been accomplished and the full fruition of that salvation
when human history reaches its completion. The faithful response
to this tension is called hope. Hope is the form salvation takes
and the way it functions in the day-to-day living of the Christian.
St. Paul can say, "in this hope we were saved." Informed
by the sacred memory that the Church’s liturgy constantly
renews hope meets the flow of current events head on. Neither
things present nor those to come "will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." These
things must be seen in the light of God’s great plan already
revealed and so be brought into subjection to Jesus Christ.
Hope has been defined as the confident desire of obtaining
a future good. Such a positive outlook on life can be quite powerful.
Once during a mostly negative discussion about the state lotteries
our resident associate, David Blythe, contributed, "no one
ever committed suicide with a live lottery ticket in his pocket."
This is an insightful observation; essentially what the lottery
is selling is hope.
If hope even in the short-lived and limited form of a lottery
ticket can be a positive good, how much more ought we to expect
from the Christian faith and its comprehensive vision of the
ultimate victory of God despite all apparent obstacles and setbacks.
This hope not only defeats despair, it also energizes the human
spirit to reach out and strain forward. With St. Paul we "press
on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in
Christ Jesus." It imparts a supernatural joy as "we
rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God." In the
labors and afflictions of this life the Christian soul can endure
manifest "steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."
Hope is sometimes derided as too other worldly and thus of
little value to the pressing problems of the present time. The
more a person fixes his gaze to the future in hope the less engaged
he is thought to be in the here and now. But is it not precisely
the opposite that is true? It is the person who has a cheerful
and well grounded confidence in the future who is most able energetically
and persistently to put love into practice in the present circumstances
and so to anticipate the coming of the Kingdom. The final judgment
is not just about one future moment in time; it teaches rather
the eternal weight of all moments in time. It is the love expressed
in our present choices and actions that touch personally and
immediately the Lord and judge of history. "I was hungry
and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I
was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed
me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came
to me."
Our relationship to Jesus Christ in time is two-fold: to abide
and to watch. We are to abide in the Christ of the past
who "became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made
man." Equally we are to watch for the Christ of the
future who "will come again in glory to judge the living
and the dead." The Advent Liturgy seeks to renew both these
relationships. It thus prepares us to celebrate Christmas not
just as a nostalgic memory but rather as an unfolding mystery
that opens up and reveals the future to us in a new and fresh
way. The grace of God that appeared in Bethlehem is not becoming
less effectual over the years. It is still energizing and training
the Christian people "to renounce irreligion and worldly
passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this
world, awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory
of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ."
Sincerely,
Fr. Richard G. Herbel
News & Notes
In September Fr. Richard traveled to Chicago to attend the General
Retreat of the Society of the Holy Trinity. The Society supports
pastors in their ordination vows and works for the confessional
and spiritual renewal of the Lutheran churches. Many of its concerns
overlap those of St. Augustine’s House, especially the emphasis
on a disciplined daily prayer life and the healing of the Lutheran-Roman
Catholic division.
Two members of the Fellowship have made several needed improvements
and repairs to the Retreat House this fall. Norbert Mayer completed
the sanding and refinishing of the wooden floor and stairs in
the Retreat House. Samuel Ewalt repainted the metal copula and
rebuilt the wooden screen around the rear door.
We are calling it the "Local Committee" for now.
This is a group of local supporters who would like to coordinate
volunteer work and to promote the services offered by St. Augustine’s
House. An initial meeting was held in November and readers in
the southeast Michigan area may be hearing more about it after
the holidays.
On Christ the King Sunday a brunch was served in place of
the coffee hour after the regular 10 a.m. Liturgy. This was well
received and we may try to make it a monthly or at least a regular
practice.
Building News
Although we now have sufficient funds to complete the bell tower
of the new church, other factors have prevented the start of
actual construction. We are currently awaiting the erection of
the interior steel frame. Since this work is being offered to
us gratis we are not too concerned about the delay. The weather
is now an important consideration as well.
We continue to be thankful for our new church building. At
the end of this year we will have paid off almost $20,000 on
the original $145,000 load. We are trying to balance spending
for new construction and normal maintenance with repayment of
the loan. We are grateful to those who have sponsored the use
of the new church by paying our mortgage for a month.
Monthly Chapel Sponsors
Gifts are gratefully acknowledged in memory of
Geroge and Patricia Head
Albert R. Herbel
Miriam Kennedy
Arthur Carl Kreinheder
Stepping Out of the Night
The passage below is taken from an address by the contemporary
German theologian Joseph Ratzinger. He asks, "what is Advent"
and gives the following answer.
[The Christian tradition] has expressed its view of Advent
in the Bible texts which it took as the season’s signposts.
I will mention just one of them, a few verses from Paul’s
letter to the Christians in Rome. There he says, "…it
is full time now for you to wake from sleep…the night is
far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works
of darkness and put on the armor of light, let us conduct ourselves
becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not
in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ…" (Rom 13:11-14).
So Advent means getting up, being awake, emerging out of sleep
and darkness.
There are many people, of course, who urge us to get up and
awake; "Germany, awake!" was the cry of those who,
years ago, were bent on deluding the nation; and today too there
are awakenings and uprisings that lead further into darkness
instead of out of it. What does Paul mean? He puts very clearly
what he means by "night" by speaking of "reveling
and drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, quarrelling and
jealousy." For Paul, nocturnal reveling with all that goes
with it stands for the dark side of human nature, man’s
being "asleep." For him it becomes a symbol of the
pagan world as such, submerged in material things, held fast
in the darkness that prevails where there is no truth and which,
despite all its decibels and hectic activity, is asleep, because
it lives unaware of genuine reality, of the real human vocation.
Nocturnal orgies as the image of a world in ruin–are
we not appalled to see how aptly Paul characterizes our present
times, which are returning to paganism? For us, "rising
from sleep" means arising from conformity with the world
and with the times and having the courage to believe and to shake
off the dream that causes us to bypass our true vocation and
our best possibilities. Perhaps the Advent hymns we hear every
year may be lights to us, indicating our path, making us look
up and recognize that there are greater promises than those of
money, power and pleasure. Being awake for God and for other
people–that is the kind of ‘waking" that Advent
has in mind, the wakefulness which discovers the light and brightens
the world.
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The Congregation of the Servants
of Christ-St. Augustine's House-is an ecumenical Christian community
whose life of discipleship is inspired and shaped by the Holy
Rule of St. Benedict. We are affiliated with the Lutheran tradition,
understood as a movement within and for the one holy catholic
and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.
We are committed to the growth of the permanent resident community,
to the pursuit of ecumenical understanding, and to the provision
of retreats for members of the Fellowship of St. Augustine and
others. We seek to serve the whole Church by our life of prayer
and by the use of our facilities.
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Back Issues of
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