As I sit here writing
my thoughts, in the season of Advent, I can’t help but wonder if Advent is more
of a season of waiting for Christ or more like a season of allowing the Spirit
to form us to see Christ anew. In this academic year of seminary formation, I
am assigned to the Catholic Community of South Baltimore, an urban community made up of three historic parishes. It is a community of young and
old, but mostly young with three times as many baptisms as funerals. Every
month I see more than a handful of babies baptized into the Body
of the Church. It is truly a time of recognizing Christ anew in helpless infants.
Just prior to the start of Advent, we celebrated the feast of Christ the King. I
can’t help but recognize that "King" far more differently than any artistic
rendering. The King, in my recent experience, cries a lot, spits up, and is
held by parents with love. For me, this is a beautiful image of the Christ.
In
my assignment, I also teach 4th and 5th grade religious
education, as well as sometimes leading conferences for adults participating in
the Rite of Christian Initiation (RCIA). On my way to the parish on the Solemnity
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, I stopped at a red light.
There, like every Sunday, I saw an older man walking the median back and forth
while asking for spare change. I hoped, this particular day, that he would not
reach my car before the light changed. Searching for change, pressing the
button to roll down the window, and interacting with another human being this
early in the morning seemed like too much work. In short, he was going to reach
my car before the light changed. So I searched my cup holder full of change, moving
the pennies and nickels out of the way in order to find a handful of quarters.
As
he approached my car, I pressed that button to roll down my window, stuck my
hand filled with quarters out of the car, and waited for him to limp over to
me. I gave him all I had and said, “Take care. Have a good day.” He looked at
me and responded with something I could not understand. I gestured to show that
I could not hear him. He said it again. Still, I could not hear him. Finally,
he raised two fingers into the air in the shape of a V. “Peace,” he said.
“Peace,” I said with the first smile of the day on my face. The light changed
and I drove away.
The
man: older, limping, hands swollen and red, mumbling the same word from a mouth
that could not be seen as it was covered from a long unkempt beard. As I drove
away, I broke down into tears. It took me a moment to recognize what was
happening inside me. I had an encounter with Christ—not just in an
intellectual, theological way—a real encounter with Christ. My tears were not
only in gratitude for the encounter or in awe of an experience to which I could
not fully give word, but in sadness that Christ still has to reside in such
conditions. The theme for my RCIA class changed that morning as we instead discussed
how Jesus’ ministry shows us the Father in ways that we sometimes wish were not
true—in ways unfit for God.
To
celebrate Christ the King after meeting Christ in the poorest of the poor
baffles the mind. This is Christ: living in absolute
poverty, in need of medication, unable to be understood (or even fully seen for
that matter), shuffling from car to car at a random intersection wishing
drivers “Peace”? How amazing! From that experience, I had to ask, is Advent a
season of waiting for the coming Christ into our world, or is it a season of
recognizing Christ already present and standing right in front of us?
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Bill Beechko is a seminarian for the Diocese of Scranton.
He is from Mayfield, and is a member of SS. Anthony and Rocco Parish in Dumore.
He is in Third Theology at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland.
Bill is pictured (center) at his Rite of Admission to Candidacy for Holy Orders Mass with his father (left) and Bishop Joseph C. Bambera (right).