First Sunday Of Advent

We were a little late getting to Mass this past Sunday. Something about having a baby makes timing a little challenging sometimes.... Anyway, for that or some other reason I found myself having a difficult time concentrating, keeping focused, being internally still. And it was the first Sunday of Advent, which is all about waiting, preparing, and expecting; three things I wasn't really accomplishing at the time. I did get most of Father's homily though, in part of which he discussed the change of mood or understanding of Advent over the years. It used to be that Advent was a sacrificial, penitential time of preparation with fasting and self-denial, much like Lent a little later in the Church year. Now the Church views it more as a time of joyful expectation, awaiting the coming Messiah at Christmastime. More positive, less fasting. I don't know why the Church changed this, maybe She knew that two periods of sacrifice and self-denial a year were too much for most of us weak children. Or maybe She understands that while the old pagan world awaited its Savior with sorrow and despair, we now await the coming of our Lord with joy and longing.

Well, whatever the case may be, I kept paying more attention to my surroundings than to the Messiah, and I happened to notice someone who arrived even later than we did. A tall, middle-aged man, with thick glasses, a brown overcoat, and wildly disheveled hair strolled up the aisle and plopped down in a pew near ours. He had a homeless air about him, and he didn't genuflect before sitting down. So I figured he wasn't a Catholic. Just some bum off the streets. I won't say I judged him, but maybe I should have been more concerned with my wandering attention than with his failure to genuflect.

I noticed the nervous, seemingly uncontrollable actions of his hands that hinted at some mental handicap. He took off his overcoat and tossed it carelessly in the seat beside him. Underneath, I now saw he was wearing an old, brownish sweater. On his back still clung two fresh green leaves, probably left over from sleeping in some ditch or yard the night before. They had a certain beauty and incongruity about them that immediately arrested my attention.

My wife, daughter, and I attend St. Martin of Tours off Broadway Street in Louisville. It holds the distinction of being the only church in the area to remain open twenty-four/seven, and to have a perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel. It is also located in a less than desirable section of town. For both of these reasons the church is constantly manned by a security guard and cameras. I guess the homeless gentleman had arrested the attention of the security guard as well, for I saw the guard come walking up the aisle a few minutes later. I don't know the guard's name, but I'll call him Joe for now. Partly for ease of writing, and partly because of some stereotypical prejudice in my mind that makes me think that all aging, part-time security guards at Catholic Churches should be called Joe....

Homeless people like St. Martin's, and I found it kind of beautiful that the man with the leaves was sitting there, but I suspect that Joe was worried that he might disrupt the congregation after Mass. Maybe ask for money or something. I have heard that Pope John Paul II said that we are all beggars, but I would agree that there is a need for order and propriety where the Divine Liturgy is concerned. Joe squatted down beside him and spoke to him in hushed tones for a couple of moments. The homeless man mumbled something inaudible in reply, while the nervous fingers gestured to the front, to the Altar and the Priest, as if to say "I'm here for this." And apparently he was, which from my perspective made me happy. I don't know that man's soul, or what he has been through, or what may have made him the way he is. I do know that the Church teaches us that the mentally handicapped are usually innocent of grave sins, due to a lack of free will and understanding. I am often moved when I see a handicapped person receive our Lord in Communion, for I know that they are innocently held in a Grace that carries them like a child through this "vale of tears." Sometimes it's easy to assume that our knowledge makes us superior, that we have somehow made ourselves worthy of God. But just as an unknowing child is freely given milk by its mother, so too God freely feeds the wounded and the handicapped.

When the time came to go forward to receive to the Eucharist, the homeless man's body language indicated that he would like to enter the line in which I stood. I paused to let him go in front, and all the way up the aisle I saw those two green leaves shining between his shoulder blades. Maybe you will think of fig leaves, but God knows that our own attempts to cover up our sins and sicknesses long ago withered and turned brown. We are all in need of healing, spiritually and mentally. Even our handicaps are but another consequence of the Fall. A sick and broken people we stand in line to receive the "medicine of immortality." The homeless man's apparent ease and familiarity convinced me that he was, indeed, a Catholic. He received the Sacred Host, placed it in his mouth, rammed his hands in his pockets, and strolled back to his pew.

Maybe he shows us a little of what we cannot see about ourselves. That we are homeless; that we are wounded; that we even sometimes smell. Maybe this is what we have been waiting for: healing. Maybe there is an Advent lesson here. We wait for, and we long for our Savior, our Healer. We wait for Messiah to deliver us from bondage and brokenness. I am thinking now of Revelation, where we see the trees of life planted on either side of the great river. And "...their leaves shall be for the healing of nations." And so this Advent we await the coming of the true Tree of Life, Whose leaves do not cover up our nakedness, but rather take away its shame. Even so, come Lord Jesus, come Tree of Life, whose leaves shall be for healing; for our healing and for that of all the nations.

I hope I shall see that man again. If not now, then after. If not here, then on the Other Side.
Meanwhile we wait.