CREATIVE WAITING

Some years ago when I taught a graduate course in human relations at a university, I always showed a documentary film on the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. Aptly titled "Night and Fog,” it recorded the brutality and inhumanity of those death camps. Some people in the class were sickened by it. All were saddened, and some were even in tears at the end of the viewing.

As I now reflect on that film, I see that “Night and Fog” would be an appropriate film to view during the season of Advent because it’s about waiting. The movie shows how some people who were waiting for deliverance became turned in upon themselves and destroyed others. They cooperated with the Nazis, bargained for favors, and in the process lost their dignity and humanity. Their waiting was destructive. Others, however, resisted with all their strength and administered with compassion and great charity to those who were sick, or weak, or afraid. In his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” Victor Frankel documents how he and other Jews reacted creatively to this crisis situation and as a result grew in dignity and humanity. Their waiting was creative.

Creative waiting during Advent means deep personal encounters with Jesus in prayer – not reciting by rote words that we learned long ago but speaking to Jesus about the circumstances of our lives: our jobs, our families, our frustrations, our weaknesses. Creative waiting also means meeting Jesus in his sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance. Creative waiting means meeting him daily in the Scriptures. Creative waiting means seeing and searching for him in others.

In the Advent psalms, we pray: “Lord, make us turn to you, let us see your face and we shall be saved.”

God has many faces and he is looking at us through these faces all the time. The face of the aged, the face of the frightened, the face of the sick, the face of the sinner, the face of the child, the face of the refugee, the face of the poor.

Our Advent prayer is, “Lord help us to wait creatively. Through prayer, the sacraments, and the scriptures help us to be more responsible for each other. Help us to see your face in the faces of others so that we may indeed be saved.”

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