[A friend of mine dreads the sermon for the First Sunday of Advent. It’s the most busy and hectic time of the year, and now they’re going to pile something “spiritual” on top of my never ending to-do list! They’ll give us the impossible task of fighting the secular and materialist spirit of Christmas, and I’ll just be left with an overwhelming sense of failure. So, let’s be clear that that’s not the goal.]

          “Unto you have I lifted up my soul. O my God, I trust in you, let me not be put to shame; do not allow my enemies to laugh at me; for none of those who are awaiting you will be disappointed.” A couple months ago, we started singing the Introit or Entrance Antiphon before the processional hymn at the beginning of Mass. While it’s currently forming a short prelude to the procession, this is the actual text chosen by the Church to accompany the beginning of Mass, chosen usually from the original Christian hymnal, the Book of Psalms. The introit or entrance antiphon sets the theme of the Mass. The official liturgical books even refer to the different Mass formularies by the first word(s) of their introits or entrance antiphons.

          The Church gives us this theme for the first day of Advent, the first day of this season of joyful but patient and recollected longing for the Lord’s coming, when “our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” This theme of lifting up one’s soul to God, inspired the classic definition of prayer from St. John Damascene: “Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.”

          One of the great Christian masters of prayer was a simple monastery cook in the 1600s named Brother Lawrence. He encouraged his brothers and the lay people with whom he corresponded in what he called “the practice of the presence of God.”

          Brother Lawrence lived in a time known as the Counter Reformation, or, a better term, the Catholic Reformation, the great flowering of Catholic life and spirituality following the rise of Protestantism and the fracturing of the Christian West. In response to that tragedy, God raised up many saints to found new religious orders and to call the Catholic faithful back to lives of real faith and devotion. The result was an enormous increase in interest in the spiritual life, fueled by the new invention of the printing press, which made available manuals of devotions and guides to the spiritual life that promoted the methods of prayer popularized by St. Ignatius of Loyal, St. Francis de Sales, and other great masters of the spiritual life who were leading the Catholic Reformation.

          Brother Lawrence didn’t object to any of these methods of prayer, but he also didn’t find any of them particularly helpful. Instead, he advocated for a simple awareness of God’s presence, and made the constant awareness of God’s presence the keystone of the Christian life. Whether he was in the chapel or in the monastery kitchen, Brother Lawrence lived constantly in God’s presence, evincing a great peacefulness and happiness that drew others to him.

Writing humbly about himself in the third person, who wrote to a correspondent that, “For more than forty years, this brother’s principal endeavor has been to stay as close as possible to God, doing, saying, and thinking nothing that might displease Him. He has no reason for doing this, except to show his gratitude for God’s pure love and because God deserves infinitely more than that anyway. … Don’t do this in expectation of receiving heavenly comforts; simply do it out of love for Him.”

So often prayer can be dissatisfying or empty because we do it for the wrong reasons. I pray because I want to feel better, because I want more peace, because I want an inspiration to solve a problem. Brother Lawrence radiated joy and holiness because he cultivated God’s presence in a completely disinterested way – for no good for himself, but out of gratitude to God, to God who desires and deserves our love, who is always present, and should never be ignored. He saw that prayer wasn’t just one more thing to do. It was the way that he did everything.

When I entered seminary, I thought they would teach us methods of prayer. I thought it would be a spiritual version of basketball practice, learning the team’s plays and practicing until it clicked. But they didn’t do much of that. There was a library filled with all those volumes that Brother Lawrence didn’t find very helpful, and I didn’t either. There were a few conferences on how to do lectio divina, or the examen prayer. But we were largely just thrown into it.

But yet, I really did learn to pray in the seminary. I’m sure that part of it was the few conferences we received on prayer, the books that were somewhat helpful, the homilies on the spiritual life, the counsels from spiritual directors. At sixteen years since starting seminary, though, I think that the real reason I learned to pray in the seminary is that we were surrounded by love.

We were surrounded by love in the real presence of Christ’s love in the Eucharist, receiving Him daily at Mass, living down the hall from the chapel where He waited for us day and night, returning that love as lavishly as we could through the beautiful and reverent celebration of Mass and singing the Divine Office daily. We were surrounded by the love of His mercy in confession available daily, and in the kindness and patience of our spiritual directors – sometimes through an encouraging word, and sometimes by what they didn’t say in confession, making clear that this was a normal part of life, that not every confession had to be dramatic like on a high school youth retreat.

We were surrounded by the love of brotherhood. I was worried that seminary would come up short compared to the great brotherhood I experienced in my college fraternity – probably the biggest unfounded worry of my life. The real brotherhood of men pursuing holiness together is unlike anything else. To love is to desire the good for another, and no friend had ever desired the good things for me that these men desired, the highest goods possible.

When you’re surrounded by love, it’s a lot easier to be grateful, and it’s a lot easier to pray, to lift your heart to God. Most of us aren’t going to have the chance to be surrounded by love in the seminary or the convent – although some of you will! – but we are blessed here to be surrounded by the next best thing: children. “He has no reason for doing this, except to show his gratitude for God’s pure love and because God deserves infinitely more than that anyway.” Brother Lawrence’s practice of the presence of God sounds a lot like the love of a child.

I love visiting my friends Mike and Claire and their five children, who are the most affectionate kids I’ve ever met. I’m met at the car by little faces and hands, and usually walk in the front door with someone stuck to my front or back and someone else clinging to a leg. But it’s a bit of mystery to me why these kids are so affectionate. I’ve never shown up with gifts for them. I’m not sure what I’ve done for them at all. But they’ve been deeply loved by their parents, their grandma, and so many others, and they love to love in return. They’ve been initiated into a culture of love, affection, and reckless disregard for personal space. They race to outdo each other in affection, in showering love on anyone who comes into their lives.

Children are such a joy and a blessing because they reveal God to us. They reveal His love. When we are surrounded by love, it’s easier to lift your mind to God. It’s easier to be grateful; it’s easier to pray. If, like me, you haven’t achieved Brother Lawrence’s constant awareness of God’s presence, if the drudgeries of life haven’t yet been transformed because you get to do them with Him, ask God to open your eyes to the goodness that surrounds you, to the beauty of His love reflected in a child. After all, “our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed,” and will come in the person of a Child.

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

I Sunday of Advent, A.D. MMXXV