An Advent Fruit Bursts Forth

Roxane Salonen discovers some surprising Advent fruits while anticipating the rest of the Christmas season. 

As I sat at the vigil Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Bismarck, North Dakota, on Nov. 30, Father Ehli’s homily took me by surprise. 

“I’m not going to talk about the warm fuzzies of Advent,” he said, prompting curiosity. This year, focusing on a cute little baby in a manger and all the pretty, cozy things that make our hearts melt would be minimal or missing; he wanted to be real with us. 

“I want to encourage this Advent to be a time of remembering,” he said, using the date of June 6, 1944, to connect with how we might approach the season. “We’re remembering that veiled in human flesh, a mighty warrior dropped behind enemy lines to rescue an enslaved people,” he said, recalling the day that marked the beginning the liberation of Europe and the end of World War II.  

No longer captive

How did it feel to be prisoners in an internment camp when soldiers unlocked the gates and said, “You’re no longer captive”? What jubilation rose in the souls of those who thought they might die there, after months, years of abuse? 

As the first candle of the Advent wreath on the altar glistened near where Father stood, I fought back tears. I feel like a captive. A captive to this world, and even a captive within my own family. 

It had been a rough couple of weeks. Politics had caused a division within our extended brood, and it felt unbearable to hold. No, I wasn’t in an internment camp, but a dark cloud hovered, and it was growing ever near. I couldn’t help but think that this Advent might be more like Lent. 

The next evening, I began my third Oriens journey with a Zoom call to meet fellow pilgrims also following Father Joel Sember’s meditative book, Oriens: A Pilgrimage Through Advent and Christmas, which encourages daily journaling as we seek a deeper relationship with our Lord. 

The creation rush

On Day 2, I opened the book and read the passages for the day, Genesis 2:4-7, which begins, “This is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation.” Reaching the end, I read through the journal prompts and began writing.  

As I wrote, I started imagining God creating the earth, and then, creating me. I recalled the sheer excitement of creating something new, referring to it as “the creation rush,” and thought about how much fun God must have had to take the materials at hand (which He’d also created) and fashioning brand-new things.  

I thought of my childhood, playing with Play-doh and creating little animals and saying, “Mommy, look!” I thought of my weekly work as a writer, bringing word images to life on a page, and sometimes running to my husband to ask, “Can I read this to you?” I thought of my nature photos and how I love sharing with my youngest son why I am so intent on capturing the sparkles on snow and waiting for the golden hour to hold that moment of the sun dropping through the trees, and why I love posting the images on social media. 

The act of creation makes me feel alive, and it spills out and into others’ hearts. Surely, God felt that too! Not only in creating the world, but in creating me. Now, I’m imagining Him on the day He made me, taking a little dab of DNA from my mom, and some from my dad, and delighting in the brand-new combination of DNA that would become me. Of all the possibilities, I became what was just a thought in the mind of God, and I have to believe He was tickled with the result, as with all of us, and couldn’t wait to share.  

This thought also led to imagining how devastated God must feel regarding abortion. It might be similar to giving a beautiful piece of art we made to someone, and them ripping it to shreds.  

The final journal prompt was especially intriguing: “What do my breaths mean to God?” I responded in my journal, “He’s invested in them.” 

Flooded with these moments of wonder as I made my way through Day 2 of Advent, I realized that God, and Father Sember, were offering me a gift at the beginning of this journey. Yes, we are captives, and there will be hard moments this Advent and beyond. But Jesus is coming to set the captives free. I am one of them. You are too. But the God of life won’t settle for leaving His beautiful creations barred. He’s coming to bring us life, that we might delight in His creation  — in our creation — with Him! 

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Copyright 2024 Roxane Salonen
Images: Canva