Prepare to Die!

1^st Sunday of Advent

Cycle B

Is 63:16b-17, 19b:64:2-7

1 Cor 1:3-9

Mk 13:33-37

Here we are again, the first Sunday of Advent, the great season leading up to our celebration of Christmas. This year we have a full four weeks of Advent to enjoy. And this Advent is one full of changes. As we change over to a new liturgical year we are also changing over into the new Mass translation, the first in over 40 years. Lots of changes. Yet change can be difficult and stressful. One way to cope with change is through thoughtful preparation. Advent is all about preparation.

Are you preparing for that great event, are you getting yourself ready…to die?

Advent is all about preparing for the coming of Jesus. We talk about his first coming, when he was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. We look forward to his second coming, when he will come to judge the living and the dead. Both events seem so far removed from our everyday lives we hardly worry about them. But what about that most intimate coming of Jesus into our lives, when we meet him face-to-face?

Christmas has become mythical to us. Myths surround the Christmas story itself. I’m not saying the stories themselves are myths that never happened, I mean the myth we’ve turned them into. Only angels singing and trumpets blasting. Images out of medieval artwork. Nothing about the reality of what the Holy Family had to endure. We buy into the myth of the Christmas spirit. If only I get or give that one special gift then all will be well and everyone will be happy. We buy into the myth of Christmastime itself, all warm and fuzzy and perfect. But it all seems so artificial sometimes. We go into the attic and drag out all the boxes. We dust them off and open them one by one, and as we take out this ornament or that picture, we get all nostalgic about the memories they conjure up for us again. And many of those memories have become mythical in our minds; they get better and better every year. We put up plastic wreaths and store bought ornaments, and we decorate our lives with lots of shiny, pretty stuff. But underneath it all nothing has really changed. Have we got the foundation right?

We live with many myths in our lives. We buy into the myth that there is really no sin in the world. We buy into the myth that there is no hell and if there is, a loving God would never send his children there. We buy into the myth that we have all the time in the world. Death is certain, we know, but it is so far, far away.

We live our lives rarely giving a thought to what lies beyond. I have had the privilege of being present at the death beds of many people, and I have also been present with the families when death has come suddenly and unexpectedly. I’ve seen some good deaths and some not-so-good deaths. By good I mean the attitude of the dying, and of their loved ones. It’s a bit simplistic to say that if someone has lived well they die well, but in a way that’s how it works. If someone has prepared themselves their entire lives for death, then death holds no fear for them. They have a sublime sense of peace about them, and that peace extends to their loved ones who wait with them. If someone has not prepared then the result is fear and regret. Fear of the unknown, fear of pain, fear of loss, regret about things done and not done.

Jesus tells the parable of the watchful servants today. The master has gone away and leaves his servants to run his affairs while he is gone. He tells them to be watchful and awake, not because they fear what the master will do to them if he arrives and finds them asleep, but because they do not want to miss out on the celebration when he returns. They have worked so diligently for so long, it would be a shame for them to miss out on the rewards just because they let their guard down for a little bit.

I remember sitting with Sister Margo Cain as she was dying from cancer. She had hung a little painting on the wall just opposite her bed, at a height that allowed her to see it from where she lay. It was of a beautiful field. She said it was her vision of heaven, of what lay ahead for her. She would just lay there and contemplate it. I asked her point blank one day, “But how do you know? How can you be so sure?” She replied, “Because I just do.” Her faith was not blind. She was not some superstitious person with a desperate hope. And she didn’t come to the certainty of that peaceful understanding just then. She had been preparing herself for that moment in her life her entire life, by patiently living the life of a servant of the master. Just like the servants in today’s gospel. And now she was joyfully watching and waiting to meet her master.

Many people today, including many Catholics, do not believe there is a hell, that there are no consequences for our actions here on earth. Since they do not believe in sin, there is nothing to fear in the afterlife, if there even is an afterlife. It’s easier to believe that there is no heaven and hell than to prepare ourselves for their eventuality. They consider themselves to be rational beings, but their belief is irrational. Marx called religion the opium of the people, something to dull our senses to the suffering around us. They see the fear of hell as a human construct intended to keep us in our place, to control us. The Czech writer Czeslaw Milosz wrote “A true opium for the people is a belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, and murders we are not going to be judged.” The true fantasy is that there will be no judgment.

We all seem to think that we’ll get that chance to make a deathbed confession or conversion. But death oftentimes does not give us warning. It comes like the proverbial thief in the night, and we may not have a chance to make our peace with God. My father had ten years of suffering with cancer to prepare for his death; he was ready for it and asked me over and over again why Jesus wouldn’t take him yet. Not just because he wanted to be freed from his suffering, but because he looked forward to meeting his master. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, died of a heart attack on her way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. You can’t plan the time or method of your death. Write your plans for the future in pencil. This could be your last Mass.

Isaiah says today, “We are sinful; all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.”

We don’t like to think that we are sinners. It’s that self esteem thing. Don’t ever point out that maybe I’m not living up to the commitment of my baptism. We don’t want to acknowledge that we have failed, because it hurts. We don’t want to feel guilty. Guilt is for the less enlightened. But the fact is that we all sin, and that sin has consequences for our lives, for our relationships with others, and for the world. We all fail, and it is through our failures that we learn and grow in wisdom.

It’s not about good-old Catholic guilt, with all its negative connotations. Guilt can be healthy. Guilt is like physical pain. Pain tells us that something is not right with our bodies. Guilt tells us that there is something not right with our souls. Feeling guilt means you have a conscience, and that’s a good thing. No conscience means you don’t distinguish wrong from right. We have no problem going to the doctor to alleviate our physical pain. Why do we ignore the symptoms of our own sinfulness? Why do we think we can heal ourselves simply by ignoring it or denying its existence? Why do we try to go it alone and not sit down in the confessional for five minutes?

We’re all about the Christmas spirit, when we should be about the Advent spirit of persistent preparation. Charles Dickens said of his immortal character, Ebineezer Scrooge, after he had been confronted by the reality of his own death, “And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!” The reality of death converted him. It should us, also. Christmas is only for a day, Advent should be every day. If we get Advent right, Christmas will be right, and our deaths will take care of themselves.

Be on watch, be on guard. We guard the things most precious to us. What could be more precious than our souls?