By Fr Alexander Balzanella
Advent begins, and with it the familiar mixture of joyful anticipation and mild panic. For many, the season involves travel: trains to see relatives, buses to nativity plays, tubes to office gatherings. Anyone who has done this knows the agony of waiting on a cold platform, staring down a dark tunnel, wondering when, or if, the next train will arrive.
A study on the tube that took place in the 1980s found something remarkable. Displaying live train times, without any improvement in the service, saw a jump in customer satisfaction. Putting live tube times on the Northern Line revealed some fascinating results. Trains didn’t run more frequently, delays weren’t magically fixed, but people felt calmer, more patient, more hopeful. The mere knowledge that something was coming, even if it was still several minutes away, changed the whole experience of waiting.
That little insight into human nature is a gift as we enter Advent. Our experience of waiting is very different according to whether we know when something is going to happen. That knowledge transforms everything.
That same human nature was shared by the Israelites, they too showed restlessness in waiting for their Messiah. Throughout Advent, our Sunday readings point to the restlessness of the Israelites in awaiting their Messiah. The prophets describe the experience of a people who have grown bored of waiting, for the Messiah they doubt will ever arrive: covenant-breaking, injustice, idolatry, forgetfulness of God.
Each Advent Sunday, we hear at Mass less about the Israelites' infidelity but the promise that God will still draw near to his people. Isaiah foresees a day when “all nations will stream to the mountain of the Lord,” when people tired of violence will “beat their swords into ploughshares.” He proclaims that a shoot shall spring from “the stump of Jesse,” a fragile sign of new life when everything looked dead. He imagines a world where “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,” and where deserts blossom. Isaiah might not have said how far away that redemption would come. Next year, one hundred years or five hundred years, but that it would come. These prophecies are like the first glimmers of light far down the tunnel: the announcement that something — Someone — is coming.
Yet in the celebration of Christmas, we know how few recognised the Messiah they had been told about, who had not paid attention to the signs that had been foretold. Who busied themselves in the mundanity of life but were inattentive to the fulfilment of these prophecies, when God, robed in flesh, stepped into our world.
Advent for us is not, or rather should not be limited to, a countdown to Christmas day. It is a time of preparation for the feast to celebrate the Lord’s coming in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, but also a time to prepare our souls for the Lord’s daily coming and his arrival at the end of time in glory.
The season has a three-fold meaning: Christ coming in history, His coming to us now through grace and when he comes again in majesty. Much like the traveller who considers the alternative routes when delays come, the Christian is asked to keep his eyes open not only to stare down the distant tunnel of eternity but to search for the quiet movements of God in the present moment. The problem, as the prophets saw in Israel and as the Gospels show in Bethlehem, is not that God fails to arrive, but that His people fail to notice Him.
Advent calls us to be spiritually attentive, to notice the Lord’s coming in ways that are easy to overlook: in the nudge of our conscience, in the call to show compassion to other’s in need, to seek and to offer forgiveness, to begin to change our state of life to conform closer to God’s will. These are not minor or trifling thoughts, but the approach of the living God. To receive Him, we must cultivate the habit of recognition. A few minutes of silence in the morning, a deliberate slowing down before reacting in frustration, attending the Sacrament of Confession, or attending daily Mass: these small acts sharpen the heart’s vision. They make us people who do not merely wait for God, but people who learn to see Him arriving.
Advent also points us beyond the everyday to the fulfilment of the universe. The prophets’ promises were not exhausted at Bethlehem; they stretch forward to Christ’s return in glory, when all things will be made subject to Him. This isn’t an illusion; it is the light by which we walk through the world. When life feels uncertain, or the world grows dark, Advent reminds us that history is not spiralling without purpose. The “train” of God’s Kingdom is already on the tracks. Christ is already on His way.
This is the hope Advent offers: not vague optimism, but confidence grounded in God’s fidelity. And just as a live announcement on a Tube platform calms even the most hardened commuter, so too if we listen out with attentive hearts the Church’s announcement of Christ’s coming, we too will wait with patience, attention, and hope, and recognise the one we have been waiting for.
The parish of Highbury will be hosting a series of Advent Talks over the next few weeks:
Tuesday 2 December
Fr Alex Balzanella, Parish Priest
An Introduction to Advent
Tuesday 9 December
Fr John Hemer MHM, Scripture Scholar &
Lecturer at Allen Hall Seminary
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Tuesday 16 December
Fr Paul Keane, Chaplain at Cambridge University
Catholic Chaplaincy
Seven Bells to Bethlehem
Tuesday 23 December
Mgr Philip Whitmore, Rector of St James, Spanish Place
The One Spotless Womb Wherein Jesus Laid
7pm at St Joan of Arc Church, followed by a chance for questions, with drinks and nibbles afterwards. Talks will be livestreamed on the website.