ADVENT WITH EVELYN 1. (Based the Sermons of St Bernard)

INTRODUCTION.

Could this be your last Christmas? Probably, or perhaps not, who knows? I tend to think that one of the easiest ways to get to heaven is to live each moment as though it were our last. Some people I know were here during the last Christmas but they are not here this year. They are dead. Why did they die? Were they better or worse than those who survived the year? Who is next? Similarly, the best way to fully benefit from Christmas is to prepare well and celebrate it as though it were our last.

My friends complain that I talk about death all the time. “It is too sad”; “you are too young to think about death”; “that is depressing”; “why are you so negative?” are some of the reactions that follow. As a young college student many years ago, I travelled to Lagos to spend my holiday with my mother’s best friend. She had an only child aged seven, and he was the center of her world. One day the little boy asked me “if my mother dies, what will happen to me; can you be my new mother?” I rebuked him so much, and tried to reassure him that his mother would be around till he became a man. He persisted until his mother joined us. She in turn rebuked me for making such a claim to the child. She always answered all his questions truthfully, she insisted.  Two days later I was suddenly recalled because we had to resume sooner than previously scheduled. My hopes of travelling to Abuja with my mother’s friend were dashed and I left for Onitsha. A few days later, she travelled to Abuja without me, and died in a car crash! At her funeral, the little boy was really angry with me: “you lied to me, you said she wouldn’t die”. Why? Why did she die? So I learnt the hard way that death is at once most certain and most unpredictable.

Advent marks the beginning of a new Liturgical Year and is a time of preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas. New baby, new year, new life, so why should we think of death when Christ is just beginning his life?

Dear friends, I invite you to come with me on a four week journey to discover the true meaning of Christmas.  In the words of St Bernard, whose Sermons will form the basis of our reflections during this Season of Advent, let us:

“…Ponder well, in assiduous meditation…and diligently reflect on the meaning of this ADVENT, asking yourselves: Who is it that comes? Whence does he come? To what place does he come? For what purpose does he come? At what time does he come? By what road does he come?” St Bernard