Waiting is part of everyday life. We wait at the doctor’s office, dentist, supper market, and restaurants, and for the traffic light to turn green, in line at gasoline stations, communion lines at the church, etc. There is hardly any place to go where people do not have to wait. People wait for their favorite season or holiday to plan to travel and visit family, take some vacations, go on a pilgrimage, and others to make a move to another place, etc.
In life, children wait till they are grownups, parents wait till young people mature, students wait till they graduate, graduates wait till their first job, and those with jobs till they receive a promotion or a salary increase. People who are hurt physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually wait for wounds to heal. The sick wait to heal, fully recover, and be back with their lives.
After Thanksgiving, people count the days till CHRISTMAS
As I write this reflection, I wait enthusiastically for Christmas. Advent is the Liturgical Season of waiting for the joyous time of the year, the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. There are three types of waiting: 1.) Passive waiting, 2.) constructive waiting, 3.) creative waiting.
Jesus tells us in the Gospel to be watchful and to stay alert because we never know the day or the hour when the time will come. Fr. Herman Mueller, SVD, was a great scripture scholar and a professor of the Old Testament and biblical languages at the Divine Word School of Theology from 1978 till his death on Nov. 1, 2000. A man so devoted in his teaching and prayer. He was very zealous, diligent, and scholarly, with an unequaled passion for scriptures, an inspirational mentor and spiritual director to us seminarians. When God called him, he was waiting intently for the Lord. We all know our birthdays, but we do not know when we will face our mortality in death. When they found Fr. Herman Mueller on that faithful day, he was kneeling, with a prayer book in hand: he was gathered to his ancestors(expression of death in the Old Testament), prepared and ready.
Food for thought: Depending on how man lives, he may die old at 40 or young at 80.
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