Time is a funny, nonlinear thing.

December Blog by Rachel Drotar

I am sitting in my regular pew and there is the usual church energy. This particular Sunday, however, there is more woven into the atmosphere of my neighborhood church: coming, preparing, and waiting.

The new church year is suddenly here, and we are invited to pause.
In meditating on the scriptures, I find conflicting ideas: Christ has already come. Christ is here. Still we are preparing for his coming. I have to admit, I love and hate these messages.

One of my favorite concepts of the Catholic faith is of the Pascal Mystery, focusing on the passion, death, and resurrection. It was explained to me that the Pascal Mystery is always happening. Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection has happened, will happen, and (most importantly) is happening in our lives every day. I feel a deep connection to God when I relate my own experiences of suffering, hope, and fulfillment of promises knowing that Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection is happening now.

Christ’s birth happened, and is happening, and will continue to happen in the births we experience, in the new ways we see ourselves bringing about the Kingdom in large and small ways – from helping the 3 year old who tripped on their walk back from communion, to embracing a life-long friend during the sign of peace, to helping with the 50/50 raffle during Breakfast with Santa.

We wait for Christ’s coming, but Christ is already here – in our homes, in the eyes of our grandmothers, in the David Haas recessional music that the choir gifts to us. Christ is here! This reminds me of an Anne Frank quote I love, changing it for this season: “How exciting that we do not have to wait another minute to experience Christ.”

How do we catalog time? How are we involved in it?
A truth that I hold within my faith is that the essential component of Christ’s coming is Us. There is no way Christ would have come if we didn’t exist. And now it’s up to us to bring about the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom is right in front of me: my relationships; making commitments to the people I love; being around; showing up. People make long-term commitments to relationships but have to recommit every day: to always say “yes”; to reassess; to refocus. We commit and we are committing.

Time feels nonlinear in these moments of Advent.
How am I preparing for the coming of Christ? How am I honoring or recognizing Christ’s presence in my life already?