In these weeks before Christmas, the readings speak of vigilant joy and the coming of messengers with messages from above. Heralds such as Gabriel and John the Baptist come to prepare the way. Some Eastern Churches depict St. John the Baptist in the same way as Gabriel: with "wings." Wings in iconography speak of heavenly power, a force that rises above the world and that the world cannot hold down. No earthly power could contain the Baptist even when he was in prison or Gabriel when He confronts the limits of faith - these messangers are so powerful that even when earthly powers try to opppose them, they stir faith and repentance or else reveal injustice. The joy then that Christians are called to is not sentimental or euphoric, but rooted in a love as stern as death, for indeed, this joy is all about the vindication of the sanctity of life.
If there are messengers from heaven who come to bring us joy, there are also other messengers of falsehood that we need to tune out. Instead of power from above, our commercial media starves us on a diet of myth and facts. A Christmas special might bring a smile or a tear, but make no mistake, the emotion was calculated to sell product of one kind or another. The fact may well be that something is more expedient to buy or sell this time of year than others. But it is hardly enough for the heart to exhaust itself on the buying and the selling, let alone the overindulgence that commercial interests promote. A more meaningful Christmas comes from better messages than this.
Its not that anything is intrinsically evil about facts or myths or even Christmas specials. They have their place with the tinsel and the ornaments, but like the decorations, in themselves, they do not make a Merry Christmas. The facts of what men have done help us navigate the practical opportunities. The myths sometimes help us keep the exigencies of the moment in check by opening our hearts to higher things. Yet neither is enough for human thriving. When myths and facts are woven together to nudge us into a desired commercial behavior, we have allowed a social engineer to put us in a box that does not quite fit -- and we will be uncomfortable until we free ourselves for something more worthwhile.
Narratives and processes, though data driven, always fail to bear the weight of human existence. We need something more than a psychologically engineered appeal to the imagination. For example, the myth of constant improvement is the belief that we should never be satsified with what we have and that everything can get better if we only have the right process, This myth not only robs us of gratitude for what we have, it obscures the whole purpose of improving things at all, fomenting a constant state of dissatisfaction. To actually improve anything in this passing world is always to give one's own heart in a new way, and to give itself the heart needs its reasons that reason cannot know. Such is the truth that the Angels of Advent announce: they propose solid ground on which one might find enough joy, courage and trust to live meaningful life.
The Church's liturgies highlight Advent angels because their limited missions prepare for and are taken up by the divine missions of the Son and the Spirit. Gabriel carries out his mission with announcing the birth of new life of universal salvific proportions, He does so first to the priest Zechariah and then to the Virgin of Nazareth. John the Baptist carries out his own message of salvific proportions. He does so first by a call to conversion and the forgiveness of sins, and then by witnessing to the Lamb who will bear sin away. In fulfillment of the Prophet Isaiah, his message levels mountains and fills in deep ravines just as Gabriel's greeting casts down the mighty and lifts up the lowly. Whereas John the Baptist ministered to sinners and the One who would bear away their sin, Gabriel appears to reluctant receivers of grace as well as the virgin who is full of grace.
Through the ministry of these advent angels, now a choice can be made. Before, we could only choose between evils. With the One who is to come, who has come and is constantly coming, we have a chance to rise up and choose life in a way that we have never been able to choose it before. Such is the truth that Christianity proclaims and such is its joy. The truth unveils sin, establishes justice and opens up the opportunity to repent so that a new beginning might be made. Entertaining the mere possibility of such freedom is itself a source of joy - for a real future is offered to us and with it, a new confidence in the goodness of God at work in the world. With this hope, we finally have a reason to love the way we were meant to love.
The Angels of Advent come as a great battle for life in America unfolds. This is a battle between faiths more than it is a battle between moralities. If Christianity believes in the sacred and the heavenly, secularism is faith in the visible and material. Christianity believes in God with communion with God as the end of all things. Secularism believes in the world with constant progress as the end no matter how unfulfilling that might be. Itself a myth, secularism gaslights the Christian faith when it accuses it of myth making. It applies the skepticism of cold hard calculation to all belief except its own. It fanatically assumes that whatever falls under religious faith is fanatical. Thus, since unaided reason cannot coldly calculate the sacred, the fanatical secularist assumes that the sacred does not exist. This assumption is an obstacle to human thriving, or in Christian terms, a diabolical movement of heart against humanity. Indeed, the diabolical has always threatened what cannot be calculated: an empathetic gaze, a shared silence, a final touch, a communion of hearts, a taste of the sacred itself.
Only with the advent of divine truth do we hear a battle cry in the very heartbeat of the unborn, a womb hidden canticle celebrating the challenge that God and Man have made against the powers of loneliness and death. As mountains of injustice are leveled and deep ravines of ignorance filled in, even in a long and difficult death one may yet see a mystery so meaningful that it deserves to be suffered in the short story that is humanity, revealing all it can, no matter the pain or state of consciousness or unresolved questions in those bitter dregs. The angels of advent are sent this advent into our battle - a battle for the vulnerable, for kindness, for generosity with life, for hope. In this battle, even as the mystery of Christ's coming draws near, the voice of the Baptist and the greeting of Gabriel resound - and the joyful vigilance of the Christian faithful may yet lead people of goodwill onto a path of peace.
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