Spot Your Turns with the Eucharist in Advent
First Sunday of Advent – Year B
I came to Catholicism as an adult in the military chapel system, attending my first Mass at Our Lady of the Stars Chapel at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central coast of California. Mass at a military chapel is simple, even the Mass times are simple. There’s a vigil Mass on Saturday evening and one Mass on Sunday morning. That’s it.
The liturgy of the Mass is simple, too. It’s rare to have more than a piano and a cantor for accompaniment. There are few decorations in the chapel, and they all must be removable because the chapel is an ecumenical space used by adherents of many faith traditions on base. I don’t remember altar servers, but my husband says we had them sometimes. Maybe there’s a lector. I led the lector ministry for about a year at the chapel at Minot Air Force Base while my husband was deployed in Iraq. There were, I think, ten of us total in the ministry. I never saw an extraordinary minister of holy communion the entire eight years Chris was in the military.
But wherever we lived, every unassuming base chapel where we worshipped, there He was, presented to us on the altar at every Mass. The Eucharist was the focus of our Masses, because He was the reason we were there in cold, dark, and undecorated chapels without a cry room or a choir. We wandered the world; He remained the same, simple and firm.
I think about that a lot this spinny time of year.
We have cookie exchanges. We open Advent calendars. We participate in the Jesse Tree, reading a story of salvation history every day. We take on extra spiritual reading and additional devotions. We decorate every inch of our houses and wear all the holiday clothes. We watch so many holiday movies that I’m getting served ads every day for a new streaming service of just Christmas themed movies. I haven’t heard Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” yet this year, but I’m sure I will very soon and very often. As a mom, this time of year is rivaled only by May for the number of mandatory additional fun activities to help celebrate the season with and for our kids. It’s enough to make anyone join with Isaiah in 63:17 and cry, “Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?”
The opposite of all that wandering, all that makes us spin and lose focus, is watching one place.
My older daughter is a ballerina. They teach her in her classes that the way to keep spinning and not fall over is to watch one place over and over again with every turn you make. This is called spotting your turns. If we want to make it through Advent without falling over with all our wandering, we also need to spot our turns.
The Gospel reading for the first Sunday in Advent this year is only five verses long and Jesus tells us to “watch” four times. We need to keep our eyes on Him, especially in this dizzying season, in order to steady ourselves. He will steady us.
The Mass at its most simple, like all those Masses I attended in little base chapels, is just us and Him, an opportunity to watch Him and be watched over by Him. Paul tells the Corinthians that Christ gives disciples all the grace they need, and “He will keep you firm to the end” (1 Cor 1:9). The Eucharist is that firmness. The Eucharist is the sustenance to stay watchful in a spinny world.
In the part four of the Catechism, it states that Jesus “calls his hearers to conversion and faith, but also to watchfulness. In prayer the disciple keeps watch, attentive to Him Who Is and Him Who Comes, in memory of his first coming in the lowliness of the flesh, and in the hope of his second coming in glory” (#2612, emphasis original). Watchfulness is the spiritual practice of the Advent season. It is the prayer we most need to combat worldly overwhelm and increasing our awareness of His coming.
We don’t need to do anything extra to get ready for Christmas but recommit to prayerful watching. To sit in the pew at Mass and say in our hearts, “I’m here to watch You, Lord.” To point out to our children His presence on the altar and encourage them, “Watch Jesus!”
Happy Advent, friends. Eat the cookies, singing the songs, wear the sparkly earrings, but keep watch on Him to spot your turns.
Thank you for reading these Little Conversations. I’m so grateful for every single one of you who read and share my writing. As we begin a new year and prepare our hearts for Christmas, I’ll spend this season of Advent meditating on the Eucharist. Since the USCCB, the governing body of the Catholic Church in the United States, called for a Eucharistic Revival, I’ve prayed about ways to grow in my understanding of the Eucharist and share the joy I’ve found in Adoring Him and receiving Him in the Mass. I highly recommend connecting with the official Eucharistic Revival campaign. They send out high quality information and reflections and give us the opportunity to pray for the revival.
Since many readers of these weekly posts are not Catholic, here’s a short video from Fr. Mike Schmitz about what Catholics believe about the Eucharist. Catholics have the opportunity at each Mass to receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Savior Jesus Christ. May we meet Him at Christmas fully prepared for that sacramental gift.