Is 2: 1-5; Rom 13: 11-14; Matt 24: 37-44
“Wake Up!” Stay awake. Listen to your wake up call. One year when I was in Boston for Thanksgiving, my cousin Lorenzo told some of us what had recently happened to him at the graveside burial of a relative. His head was bowed during the service. When he raised it, the first thing he saw, engraved on the gravestone, was his own name! This started him, spooked him. He realized, of course, that it was the grave of his grandfather, for whom he had been named. Still the name recognition shook him up, unsettled him with disquiet! This story reminded me of a mutual friend of ‘ours.’ We will be hearing much about this character over the next few weeks. His name is a household word. His name is Ebenezer Scrooge. Do you remember when he sees his name on his own gravestone? Remember how it jolts him? It was one in a series of such jolts that he experiences that Christmas Eve night. These were administered by a series of Christmas Eve visitors, ‘spirited’ visitors, one might say. They came to instruct him. We hear today in Isaiah that God will “instruct us in his ways that we may walk in his paths.” Scrooge needed instruction. Christmas Eve was his Advent, compressed into one spirited night. It effected a great change in him. Recall how Scrooge “awakes from sleep” as Paul says to the Romans today. He runs to the window and calls to the boy passing below in the street: “Is the prize goose still hanging in the butcher’s window? Yes!? Run and buy it for me!” Scrooge turns from his former ways. People think he is off his rocker. Spiritual masters call this ‘conversion of manner.’ Having received instruction, Scrooge begins to walk in God’s ways, becoming lavish with all he meets, from the boy in the street, to this nephew, and of course to Tiny Tim “announcing the Gospel of the Lord.” — all this from pondering his ‘last end.’ All see it, too. My cousin Lorenzo and Mr. Scrooge have this in common. Advent is a time conducive to this. The Church reminds us that Christ invites us all to deeper conversion of manner. We prepare a space within for the continuing coming of Christ. St. Ignatius is helpful here as well. He gives us a spiritual exercise leading to action. He says: Imagine yourself on your deathbed – like Scrooge. Look back over your life. How would you wish you had lived it? What decisions would you wish you had made? Through doing an exercise such as this, in these darkest days of the year, God can instruct us in his ways so that we might walk more closely in his paths. We must be vigilant, not knowing when or in what ‘visitor’ he may appear. As Christ tells us today, he may come ‘at an hour’ we ‘do not expect.’ Wake up. Stay awake. Be alert for his coming — for Christ comes continually! Every day!