By Fr. Glenn Jones:

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! After the hectic beginning of another school year, coupled with the cooler weather, it’s always a favorite holiday as we begin to slide into the winter season and the dreariness which often accompanies it. However, of course, now we look forward to December and the joys of the Christmas season and its gatherings and holidays before the real depths of winter begin.

But before we get into Christmas, we traverse the Christian Advent season—this year beginning on December 1. Advent is a time of anticipation for celebration of the remembrance of the birth of Jesus 2000-ish years ago—one of the most signal events in all history as any objective person must admit. Even the honest non-Christian historian recognizes the worldwide influence of this otherwise obscure manual workman, living in a vassal state of the Roman Empire, finally executed upon a cross, and yet who would initiate one of, if not THE, largest religious movement in history. As I often point out, doesn’t that seem quite unlikely if not there had been a supernatural impetus behind it? Something to think about if you have yet come to believe in Jesus.

Rather ironically, as we begin this new Advent season and the accompanying beginning of the Church’s liturgical year, the Gospel of the Catholic Mass for the day has Jesus speaking not of the beginning, but of the end—more specifically of the end of the world as we know it: “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’” (Luke 21:25-26)

Many, of course, find such verses frightening, but they need not be—not because what is described will not come to pass, but of God’s very adamant promise of that which comes about after that time. And what God promises cannot not come to pass. Regardless, even should the events occur as literally described, are they that much different from what we know we experience in the normal course of life?—deterioration of the body and the subsequent natural fear and uncertainty of the unknown of inevitable death? We know it’s coming, but we push it to the back of our minds in Scarlett O’Hara-like dismissal: “Oh, I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

Yet even the non-believer wishes to be remembered fondly by family, friends and his community, if not the world. But how does he do that? Can he be a scoundrel for his entire life, and then on his deathbed give some money to a charity and then be regaled as a societal hero? Hardly. Would people not interpret that as a gesture of desperation—an insincerity forced by the hand of fate? Do we not remember the parable of the rich man and Lazarus—the rich man eternally condemned apparently because of his apathy toward those in desperate need?

No, if one wants to be a known as a good person, he must really be a good person … not by infrequent actions of a day, a month or a year, but by force of habit and of determined decision and perseverance. It’s the same with holiness, which refers to goodness, love and faith: we can’t just pop in to church services once a week, give a few bucks to a beggar, and live dissolutely otherwise, expecting public canonization to sainthood—either on earth or in Heaven. I can’t help but remember that wise observation of the leper-king in “Kingdom of Heaven” (kudos to the screenwriters!): “… your soul is in your keeping alone…even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, ‘But I was told by others to do thus’, or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice.” That reminds of the Gospel of those who refused to follow Jesus fearful of the loss of societal and authorities’ approval: “… they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” (John 12:43)

Goodness and holiness are the work of a lifetime, and the later we begin, the more difficult to break old bad habits and mentalities—the “teaching an old dog” challenge. This is what the Church through the Gospel emphasizes as we begin Advent, calling us to remember that we “know neither the day nor the hour” that we go to God: [Jesus said]: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. Be vigilant at all times … But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.” (Luke 21: 34-35, 28) Thus should we always plan for the inevitable—especially the unpredictably inevitable.

How will we be remembered—by Man, or by God? In the end, the praise of men and glory—as Patton says at the end of the movie of that name—is fleeting, for like grass, we are here one day and gone the next. And all the material things we have are but dust and ashes in the end; we know that. So, as Jesus exhorts us, and is it not simply wisdom, to “… lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also… You cannot serve [both] God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:20-21, 24) Not only our heart, but our eternal life as well.

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“ … it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.” (2 Corinthians 2:18)

Editor’s note: Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.