Looking not very far ahead one finds that almost no-one sees Advent Sunday – now impendingly close – as being of any particular significance : and yet it is, and it is in a way to which we really ought to pay some attention, because in one sense it’s (perfectly obviously) the beginning of the Church’s Year, and so ought to be celebrated as a ‘New Year’.
Indeed, a good few years ago now a small gang of us went off to celebrate ‘New Year’s Eve’ in a restaurant . . . not exactly the biggest concept for the restaurant; but then given that there was a very large function there from a local rugby club, I don’t think they actually even really noticed what we were focussing on . . . until we started celebrating actively, and singing appropriately, at midnight.
At that point someone or other from the 150 or so people from the rugby club went and complained that we (all ten of us) were disturbing them . . . as a result of which we were asked to leave; but with the modest generosity that, having done nothing in particular wrong, they weren’t minded to give us a bill !
I have to say that I’ve scarcely repeated that episode since; but that’s circumstances, not a change of mind . . . and I do try and have a small glass of something at midnight, and recognize that the Church’s Year has begun, and that it is a good time to recognize God’s infinite loving generosity to us all.
How about you ?
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All our mortal lives are an approach to the beginning. The real beginning. Nothing this world says about you (me, everyone) has anything to do with our own true destiny. Only God's Grace and our will's response to it has power or influence. All the rest are just 'things' passing through our hands in stewardship (our given duties). Even your hands don't belong to you. You're stewarding that pair too!!
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