December 2006 Print

Fr. Gerard Beck

 

The Advent season represents the time preceding Christ's coming, Christ's coming both historically--the thousands of years which preceded His coming to this earth as a man, as the God-Man--and also His coming into our hearts; a time when we are to be preparing for Our Lord and the grace of Christmas, which is the special presence of Our Lord by grace in our souls. It is also a time of preparation for His second coming. In each instance, Advent is a time of preparation.

Throughout the Advent season, holy Mother Church constantly echos and re-echos the words of St. John the Baptist: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; make ready the way of the Lord" (Mt. 3:2-3). This is done by purple vestments, the sobriety of the liturgy–no flowers and organ, for example–and by the texts of the liturgy itself. It is a call to penance from holy Mother Church. It is something we should be accustomed to for Advent. If we weren't Catholics, perhaps we would be surprised; but we should be used to it. Nevertheless, we might well ask ourselves why holy Mother Church emphasizes penance in a time we might think is particularly joyous. There is a certain joy, for sure. But at the same time, the Church emphasizes penance. Our Lord Himself goes so far as to say, "Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish" (Lk. 13:3). Why is it that holy Mother Church does this particularly in times of preparation: Advent, Lent, the vigils of great feasts?

The answer is at least twofold. The first one is very obvious: to sanctify our souls. We do penance to make up for our faults, frailties, and falls in the past. We do penance to make up for the sins of those around us. This is what Our Lady talked about at Fatima when she told the children to do penance. "My Son is much offended." But we also do penance for another, less obvious, reason: We are stained and wounded by original sin. Adam fell and passed on the sin that he first committed to his children. Although that sin has been wiped away by our baptism–there's no fault–there yet remains a fallen nature. Our nature is disposed to look for the easy way out and to think of ourselves rather than God.

Original sin is the cause of this self-love, the "me first" mentality. At a very basic level, this is the cause of all sin. Any sin involves a certain amount of selfishness. We can see the effect of original sin even in a very small child. Take a two-year-old child, for instance; certainly there is no malice in a two-year-old, but we can see already the selfishness and the "me first" mentality. Even at two, they want the world to revolve around themselves. They demand to be gratified immediately or else a tantrum ensues. The role of the parents is to nip this attitude in the bud as much as possible. Yet something of this mentality and weakness will remain. Our fallen nature, which constantly wants its own way and thinks of itself, will stay.

We must fight against it. Even in fighting against it, it will still stay. St. Francis de Sales says, "Self-love can be mortified, but it never dies." It's similar to weeds in a garden. Often the weeds are big and the roots are deep. You reach down as far as you can to reach the root but the weed snaps instead. The root remains. Two days later, the weed re-appears. Original sin is like this in a way. We work hard to mortify ourselves, we snap the weed, but we can never get the root. This is because the wound of original sin stays. The weeds will always come back up, which is why we must constantly continue the weeding process and fight against self-love, which, if we let it go, will choke out the love of God. In a garden, the weeds will choke out good plants if the weeds are ignored.

Because of original sin, we all have weeds, but we also have the good plant, which is the love of and faith in Almighty God which was planted at our baptism. When we were baptized, we received the seed of our faith and our love of God, the supernatural virtues. Those virtues started to grow as we grew and matured. But the weeds of self-love are always working hard to shut out and choke the love of Almighty God.

Our Christian life is a combat between self-love on one hand and the love of God on the other hand. Our goal always is to make more room in our heart for Our Lord Jesus Christ and the life of grace. Love is something intangible; there is no fixed amount. It can grow to infinity. For the sake of the analogy, however, think of the heart as something with a fixed volume. Think of the love of self and the love of God both seeking to expand. The love of self is constantly seeking to grow, and as it grows it will push out the love of God, for there is no room for both of them. If the love of God grows, the love of self must decrease in its turn. One will push out the other. To become a saint is to grow in the love of God until the love of self is completely pushed out.

Of course, to lose our soul, to commit a mortal sin, is the other extreme. A mortal sin pushes out the love of God. Only self-love remains at that point. How can we fight this combat between self-love and love of God? The answer is acts of penance, to go against ourselves out of love for Almighty God, out of a desire to love Almighty God more. Holy Mother Church realizes these things.

We must recognize, however, that penance is only a means. It's absolutely necessary, but it's not the goal. Our goal is the love of God and the life of grace; penance is a means to that goal. Sanctity, then, does not consist in extreme mortification; it consists in the love of Almighty God. We might look at a particular saint and say, "Look at all the things he did! Look at the tremendous penances!" But this is not what made him a saint. What made him a saint was that which motivated him to do those heroic acts for the love of God.

But for us to insist on heroic acts of penance to become a saint can be dangerous. Any penance must conform to our duty of state. For instance, should a mother of a family decide to eat only one meal a day in order to do penance? Half-way through the day, she may be so exhausted that she has to lie down and take a nap because she didn't eat. Maybe she can't take care of the kids because she didn't eat, or her nerves are so frayed that she's constantly snapping at the children. This kind of penance is not fitting for this duty of state. The devil has won a victory in such cases. This woman may think she is working for sanctity, but in fact she is neglecting that which will give her sanctity for something that has nothing to do with sanctity except as a means.

Penance has no value in itself. It is not sanctity. God doesn't have need of our fasting. He doesn't have need of our sweets or of anything we might offer to Him. He wants the love and faith that are behind those offerings. That's what makes the difference to God. It's similar to a small child who offers a lollipop to his mother; the mother might not want it, but she sees the love which is behind such a gesture. But it's not the lollipop that makes the difference. So it is with Almighty God.

What we're looking for then, as we choose our penances, is the spirit of penance. This is what counts; in other words, the love of God, the desire to love God and looking for opportunities to prove our love for Almighty God. We shouldn't approach Advent thinking, "I have to do something for Advent, so I won't eat dessert after dinner." It's not as simple as doing things out of habit; by doing that, we don't demonstrate any real love for God. What we want is the spirit behind it. That spirit means looking for opportunities to give something to Our Lord. It must go beyond a mere penance we choose, whether it's giving up sweets or television or reading the sports section. It goes far beyond that; the spirit of penance must seep into our whole life during the time of Advent. It is the spirit which is behind penance that counts with Almighty God.

Understanding, then, what penance is and what it is for, we can now profitably discuss penance in practice. What are we going to do? The first question is: "What am I going to do to make it a good Advent?" We have to realize that penance falls into two general categories. First is self-imposed penance, things chosen by ourselves, like giving up sweets. The other category are things we do not choose, things that the good God chooses for us–for example, an illness. In such a case, God has chosen something which is a penance; we don't choose it for ourselves.

When we hear the word "penance," we usually think of the first category, the self-imposed penances. Unfortunately, because we lack the spirit of penance, we tend to limit our penance not only to things imposed on ourselves, but to things which are rather superficial. In fact, most people tend to limit them to acts of temperance; for instance, not eating sweets, skipping breakfast, giving up coffee, alcohol, smoking, etc. All of these are examples of temperance. Most of us go no further than that.

We forget that, with regards to penance, there are countless fields and areas to choose from. For example, we can choose the control of the senses. We can practice custody of the eyes and try to control what we look at in public and what we read in the papers and magazines. Or we can practice the control of our tongues, trying to say only charitable things. To be specific, we could give up saying anything while we are impatient, frustrated, or angry. Or we could work on controlling our imagination, especially if we are apt to daydream. We could do a decade of the Rosary or a particular work we don't like each time we catch ourselves daydreaming. Another example would be working against our passions: anger, hatred, etc. Choose one of them, mortify it and don't let it control you. For example, if you are frustrated with someone, don't let the passion of anger dominate you, and offer up for your penance the mortification of that passion. Refuse to let yourself dwell on it. Every time that person crosses your mind, offer a Hail Mary for that person. Bodily discipline is another possibility for penance: how we sit, how we stand, etc.

All of these are different fields of penance, and the key for us is to pick a penance which corresponds to our weaknesses. For instance, if you're disposed to gossiping, don't make telephone calls unless necessary and set a time-limit for when people call you–maybe ten minutes. It's a good practical penance that works on a weakness. Or maybe you're the father of a family who watches TV all the time, neglecting your wife and children. There's a weakness. What can you do? Disconnect the TV for Advent. Maybe you waste time at work and don't put in a good day's labor. As a penance, focus on getting your job done as well and as quickly as possible. Maybe you don't go to bed on time. And if you don't go to bed on time, maybe you don't get up on time and neglect your morning prayers. As a penance for Advent, then, go to bed at a fixed hour. There is a penance you can pick for any weakness. These are ways to truly go against ourselves. This is the way we truly root out that self-love and make room in our heart for a greater love of Almighty God.

These self-imposed penances, things that we choose for ourselves, are very excellent and very necessary, but they are not the essential. If you think about it, there is self-love even in choosing what we want to do for penance. Sometimes it's very easy to see. "Okay, it's Advent, I'll give up snacks; after all, I am a little bit overweight." "I'll give up smoking; I've always wanted to show them I can quit when I want." There is self-love in these kinds of penance. Sometimes it's a self-love that is so subtle; it is relatively easy to do even very difficult things so long as we choose it ourselves. If somebody else chooses the same thing for us, it is suddenly not so easy. I remember being at the seminary during Advent one year. The rector chose a penance for the whole community: "For breakfast in the morning, there will be no jam." You would be surprised how many seminarians had a hard time accepting it. It was very difficult for them to give up jam; they would rather choose their own penance, thank you very much. It was more difficult because they didn't choose it.

The kind of penances which are not chosen by ourselves, the penances chosen by Almighty God, are the most precious, the ones that serve God more, and the ones that root out self-love most effectively. To accept generously all that our daily life brings us is not easy. After all, God knows better than we do the penances which are necessary for us. If He picks a particular penance, whether it is a husband or wife who frustrates us, or an illness, or whatever it might be, it is that which we need to really work against our weaknesses and to root out self-love. And if He picked it, we know that there is no self-love involved at all.

Very often, these kinds of penances come in the field of our duty of state. If you're a priest, what is the most effective penance? It will be something that will help you become a better priest. If you're a father of a family, what is the best penance for Advent? It will be something that will help you be a better father and husband. If you're the mother of a family, it will help you be a better mother and wife. If you're a child, it will help you be a better student and child.

Daily life is where we are going to find the fertile field where we can really choose something to help us be a better Catholic and root out self-love. Our Lord has already chosen. You don't need to look very hard, especially if you're married. How true it is; those of you who are married need look no further than your spouse and children for Advent. You don't need to give up sweets. You may; it might be good for you to do it, but that's not where you need to start. Look at your family. Right there is where you need to work.

There is much here for us to reflect on. If we truly wanted to have a good Advent, if we truly wanted to prepare and make room in our hearts for the special presence of Our Lord at Christmas time, it comes with the Advent liturgy. The key is generosity. The saints say that in the measure that we give ourselves to Almighty God, in the same measure He will give Himself to us. We need to be generous.

First, we must make resolutions. Advent tends to sneak up on us. All of a sudden, it's the First Sunday in Advent and we haven't even thought about it. Perhaps we never seriously think about it, so we never make firm and solid resolutions, and two days later, they're forgotten. Three weeks later, we look back and say "It wasn't a very good Advent."

We need to reflect and then solidify concrete, practical, simple resolutions which are going to help us work on our self-love. Don't let Advent arrive before doing this. If you reflect, think, and choose, keeping in mind some of the principles in this article, you will have a good Advent. Of course, you will need to constantly renew those resolutions. At least you will be off to a good start.

Let us, then, be generous and truly prepare for Advent so that we can receive the mystical and mysterious birth of Our Lord in our souls on Christmas Day.

 

Fr. Beck was ordained for the SSPX at Ecône in 1996. He has been assigned to the US District headquarters since his ordination, while serving parishes in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and Minnesota. He is currently in charge of the SSPX's education program in the US. The sermon was preached on November 28, 1999, at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Transcribed and edited by Angelus Press.