THE SHAKING REALITY OF ADVENT

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The answer to this question

is that perhaps we were living on earth

in an utterly false and counterfeit security.

And now God strikes the earth till it resounds,

now he shakes and shatters; not to pound

us with fear, but to teach us one thing -

the spirit's innermost moving

and being moved.

.

Here is the message of Advent:

faced with him who is the Last,

the world will begin to shake.

Only when we do not cling to false

securities will our eyes be able to see

this Last One and get to the bottom of things.

Only then will we be able to guard our life

from the frights and terrors into which

God the Lord has let the world sink

to teach us, so that we may awaken from sleep,

as Paul says, and see that it is time to repent,

time to change things.

.

It is time to say, "All right, it was night;

but let that be over now and let us

be ready for the day."

We must do this with a decision

that comes out of these very horrors

we have experienced and all that is

connected with them; and because of this

our decision will be unshakable

even in uncertainty.

.

.

If we want to transform life again,

if Advent is truly to come again - the Advent

of the people and the nations,

a coming of the Lord in all this -

then the great Advent question for us

is whether we come out of these

convulsions with this determination:

yes, arise! It is time to waken from sleep.

It is time for a waking up to begin somewhere.

It is time to put things back where

God the Lord put them.

It is time for each of us to go to work,

with the same unshakable sureness

that the Lord will come, to set

our life in God's order

wherever we can.

Advent is a time when we ought

to be shaken and brought to a realization

of ourselves.

.

.

.

The necessary condition for the

fulfillment of Advent is the renunciation

of the presumptuous attitudes and
alluring dreams in which and by means
of which we always build ourselves
imaginary worlds.
In this way we force reality to take us
to itself by force - by force, in much
pain and suffering.
.
Alfred Delp, S.J.
Written in a Nazi prison shortly before
he was hanged, in 1945, for his
opposition to Hitler.
.

.

.

.

.
You can't do the end of the world in 
a conventionally dramatic way
 or Boy Meets Girl way.
.
Terry Southern (1924-1995)
Screenwriter & UniversityLecturer
Wrote dialogue for Doctor Strangelove, The Cincinatti Kid,
Easy Rider, The Magic Christian, and The Loved One.
.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.