Emmanuel 

Advent brings with it great music. One of the classic hymns we sing during this season is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” which expresses the sorrow of those who live in exile combined with the joyful hope of redemption and restoration.  The title of the song contains within it an interesting tension, if we remember that the name “Emmanuel” means “God with us.” So, the song expresses desire for the coming of the Lord who is already with us. It is a tension that we experience in this life where the Lord is always present to us, though hidden, and we need to learn His presence while we anticipate with longing the full experience of it.  A helpful image to understand this tension is pregnancy. When a woman is pregnant, she is eager to meet the little one who is already and always there during those months of pregnancy. Most of the time the mother feels nothing. Still, she knows the baby is there, living within her. Sometimes, however, she will feel a sudden kick that brings the baby’s constant, yet hidden presence to the forefront of her mind. 

It is like this with God, too, and Advent is the perfect time to work on developing the habit of living in the presence of God. How do we do this? A helpful practice is to do a daily examination of conscience. We can do this at any time, as long as it is consistent. During the examination, we think about our day, spending about 5 minutes recalling two things: 1) the sins we committed, 2) the graces we experienced. There may be times in our day when we had an unmistakable moment of God’s presence, like the kick of an unborn child. More often, He makes Himself known to us in subtle ways that take regular practice to recognize. Through the examination, we might recognize only in hindsight that we received the grace not to lose our temper in an encounter with someone who typically irritates us. Maybe we were given the grace to make or accept a difficult apology. Perhaps there was a moment when someone said something to us that was exactly what we needed to hear in the moment, that consoled us when we were sad or pricked our consciences and kept us from doing something bad. There might have been moments in the day when we found ourselves thinking of Him or wanting to pray, and allowed ourselves to do it, responding to that grace in the moment. Or maybe we resisted the grace, not realizing what it was, and now we must ask to do better next time.  

When we develop this habit, we become more sensitive to God’s presence in our lives. We begin to want to learn more and to desire encounters with Him in the sacraments, the most unmistakable experiences of His presence, which provide us with strength and healing that increase our ability to distinguish genuine divine movements from false ones.  And we will find ourselves living differently because we realize that the Lord is not far away, that He is not distant, but is close, intimately present to us, though hidden for a time. 

posted 12/14/24