The eCrozier

Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not just yet. – St. Augustine of Hippo

Advent is a season of preparation to welcome the birth of God in our midst. This Church season then has been marked traditionally by a time of repentance in the lives of Christ’s disciples. Indeed, the Scriptures of Advent shout out for us to repent, to change our whole way of thinking and acting so we might be a vessel for God’s mission in the world.

Of course, while we engage in such spiritual work we’re surrounded by a so-called “season of giving” where we try to be less Scrooge-like compared to the rest of the year. We assuage our consciences by collecting canned goods or volunteering here or there during this “season.” This gives us internal permission to check off the box that says: “I am a generous person.” But, I’m not interested in a seasonal harangue. Too many of us use this time of the year to judge others for not celebrating the real “reason for the season.” We can hardly expect others to do so when we’re so confused ourselves about what God becoming flesh means to our own lives as disciples of Jesus.

And that brings us to Blessed Augustine. He, maybe more than any saint of the Church, personally lays it all out there. His desire to repent and take on Christian virtues, two of which he names as chastity and continence, “but not just yet,” is as honest as it comes. And if we’re honest as well, we do the same thing, especially during this season of repentance. So, we might ask God, for example, to grant us the virtue of generosity. Or, it could be another virtue like forgiving others, but let’s just stay with this seasonal virtue of generosity. We ask God then to help us become more generous. And we wait and we wait and we wait. And it never seems to come. We then shrug our shoulders, move on, and conclude that it might never happen.

There’s a story of an old priest who retires after nearly 50 years of serving poor mission churches. He asks God each morning as he says the Daily Office to allow him to win the Super Lotto so he’ll be more comfortable in his retirement. He prays this each day for a month. Nothing happens. He never wins the lottery. So, one morning while praying he cries in loud voice: “Lord, I served you for nearly 50 years and now I’d like some comfort. Why won’t you do this one thing for me?” Total silence. But then a loud voice from Heaven shouts: “Buy a lottery ticket, you fool, buy a lottery ticket!”

In our repentance, if we desire the virtue of generosity, then we should start by really practicing generosity. If we practice it again and again, we’ll wake up one day and discover we’ve become a more generous person, not all the time (we are, after all, sinners), but much more so than we had been before. The same is true for other virtues that are a part of our repentance. If we want to be more forgiving, then we should start regularly forgiving others. When it comes to repentance, we “live in our heads” way too much. We overly spiritualize what it’s all about, which means we probably will never actually do it. And the new year will come and we’ll wonder why we never seem to grow much as disciples of Jesus Christ. For the love of Christ: “Buy a ticket!”

+Scott