December 5, 2004

Advent is a reality check. In the four weeks before Christmas the Church instructs that preachers teach about the mysteries of Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. T.S. Eliot said "Humankind cannot stand very much reality." So Advent tends to make people nervous. It is ignored in the Christmas rush. To be premature about Christmas is to be immature of soul. A thermometer of one's spiritual wisdom is the degree to which one celebrates the beautiful solemnity of the four Advent weeks. It is not curmudgeonly to say this. It is a salute to human dignity to say that we are capable of considering these "Four Last Things" and ordering lives accordingly. If more people did this there would be less tedium about the commercialization of Christmas and less holiday depression. It is a paradox, that many people do feel sad in such a time of celebration. That would not be so if our culture were more mature in conveying the immense dignity our Creator has given us in showing us how to triumph over death, how we are accountable for moral judgment, how our true home is Heaven, and how to avoid Hell.

World culture itself is experiencing a certain moral depression, and so Pope John Paul II has called it a culture of death. Denial of the mysteries of life leads to contempt for life. Instead of welcoming and celebrating the gift of life, that gift is contracepted, aborted and euthanized. The United Nations Population Fund has consistently rejected the counsel of prophetic voices and so it has consistently been wrong. As late as September it was warning about dire over-population, in a propaganda to promote the industry of eugenics. Even if it cannot stand too much reality, it has been compelled to admit in a published report of November 11 that its predictions were wrong. The growth of the world's population is slowing and even tending to decline. In Europe this decline is catastrophic: from 728 million now to a projected 538 million by 2050, and in Russia from a population of 225 million in the 1970's to possibly as few as 150 million in these next fifty years. Our own country is barely at replacement level.

Prophecy is not fortune telling: it is simply telling the truth and making evident the consequences of living a lie. The moral and psychological results of denying God's providential plans already are evident in the human condition. Global institutions may continue in their denial of reality by immaturely mocking the Incarnate Word, or they may maturely accept the saving ways of Christ. Advent is a time to move progress toward the truth. As St. Augustine preached: "If you are going onward, you are walking; but always go onward in goodness, onward in the right faith, onward in good habits and behavior. Sing, and walk onwards."

Fr. George W. Rutler