Happy New (Church) Year - Rector's Rambling for November 30, 2014

Happy New Year!

We start the church year all over again this Sunday.  Although the calendar year still has another month to go, it is with the beginning of Advent that we begin again with this season of preparation.

Human beings are created in time and space.  We move from minute to minute, hour to hour.  We plan and plod, and move through light, constrained by time.  And of course the seasons also change in a cyclical pattern (even if winter seems to have jumped the gun on us this year) and help us to mark that time.

The church recognizes this reality, and uses it to the advantage of our sanctification.  As we move through the seasons and times, each one is overlapped by a church season with a different emphasis for our salvation story.

As days are getting darker the church bids us to prepare.  The darkness will not last forever, the sun will return.  So too, liturgically, the SON, the light of the world has come into the world at His earthly birth, and He is coming back again.  Prepare and be ready!  Advent bids us to prepare not only for the celebration of Jesus’ birth, but also for His return to judge the living and the dead.  And more than the preparations of the secular Christmas celebration, or even our religious preparations for the Christmas Mass, we need to be ready TODAY, in case Jesus comes back now!

So let us make a church New Year’s Resolution: to be regular about church attendance, prayer, and amendment of life.  All of these can be offered as gifts to our Lord, but the greater gift is to us – eternal life in Jesus Christ!