By Jakob Rinderknecht Special to the Intermountain Catholic Advent could be called the season of emptiness, but what does that mean? It’s hard to think about emptiness because it doesn’t really exist – instead, it is the intuition that something is missing. Emptiness implies space; we say that a mug is empty, or that a room is because those things define a space that could contain something that they don’t. If the mug weren’t sitting on my desk, I would never think to say that that space is empty. In fact, I wouldn’t call it empty if you asked — there’s air there just like all the space around it. But because that mug defines the space within it as separate from what’s around it, we would all agree that the mug is empty because I’ve already finished my coffee. Our daily lives often swirl past us without much differentiation – each day is another repetition of the patterns of my life: I get up and drink my coffee and go to work, and come home and make dinner and watch television and go to bed. Advent comes as an interruption in our lives; it makes a distinction in time. Last year Bishop Wester issued an invitation to the diocese to be careful about how we live in Advent, in his pastoral letter "Waiting in Joyful Hope." Many of his recommendations invite us into this emptiness, which marks off a space that’s different from what’s around it. In the natural world, this season is also a time of emptiness. Trees lose their leaves, showing us just how much empty space their branches embrace. The nights get longer and darkness seems to be taking over more and more of our world. You might have the same experience that I do – it’s dark when I go to work and when I come home; I find myself wanting to be quiet, to withdraw indoors to the warm glow of food and family. Once the snow falls, even the city’s usual hum can feel quiet, slower, empty. There is a space created by the dark and by the cold. It’s often a space we don’t want to think about or engage with. Too many people are caught out in the cold, and it can uncomfortably remind us that we aren’t so different from those people. It’s a reminder, too, that emptiness, cold and darkness cannot be kept away forever – death awaits every human. We don’t like to think about that darkness, we want to fill the space with pretty distractions, lights and shopping and carols. But, the Church asks us to wait, to first live with the emptiness. In fact, we’re asked to try and make room for emptiness, to pray and to watch. What are we watching for? Advent means "arrival:" We are watching for the arrival of the Bridegroom, Christ’s coming in our midst. At Mass during the four Sundays of Advent, the readings ask us to remember Jesus’ birth long ago, his coming again at the end of all things, and his quiet appearance in our midst now in the Word and in the Eucharist. We are looking forward to the day when all things will be remade in Christ and the darkness will be no more. But for now, we shouldn’t be too quick to set up the Christmas tree and put up the lights. Advent is the season of waiting, of not yet, of emptiness, and therefore of hope: We know that every empty space will be filled at the great marriage feast of the Lamb. Jakob Rinderknecht, formerly an instructor of adult religious education and RCIA at the Cathedral of the Madeleine, is a doctoral student in theology at Marquette University.
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