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Thursday, November 30, 2000
C©imm®iMary
Advent: the wait is worth it
The Southern Cross, Page 5
E very weekday afternoon, I
wait in a long line of
cars as I pick up my chil
dren from school. My
three children living at
home attend three differ
ent schools, elementary,
middle school, and high
school. Around 2:30 I leave
to pick up Anna, wait in
line for fifteen minutes,
then drive to Charlie’s school,
where we wait in line another fif
teen minutes. By the time we get to
Jimmy’s high school, the line’s
diminished so the wait there is only
about five minutes. From start to
finish, the afternoon carpool takes
about an hour and a half of my
time.
My husband thinks I am crazy to
do this. On days when he’s picked
up the children, he becomes exas
perated. He thinks my driving the
afternoon carpool is a complete
waste of time. I see his point. Some
days I question the sanity of spend
ing so much of my time just sitting
in a car. Some days my children are
so annoying as we drive home, I
wonder why I go to all this trouble
for a carload of ingrates.
Mary Hood Hart
More often than not, how
ever, the waiting is worth
it. The afternoon car ride
home provides me an
opportunity to interact
with my children in
ways I may not get to
otherwise. On a good
afternoon, I find out
details about their days
at school I may not oth
erwise learn. Sometimes they share
their successes and their disap
pointments. Sometimes we tell
jokes or sing with the radio. Some
times, exhausted from a hard day,
they nap. This time in the car has
offered us many opportunities for
closeness, sharing.
Waiting in the school pickup line,
while annoying and certainly time-
consuming, is worth it to me be
cause it enhances my relationship
with my children; it promotes inti
macy (even angry with each other,
we are intimate!)
Because time is so precious to us
as we go about our busy routines,
most of us are very particular about
how much we’ll spend waiting,
Before investing time, we want to
be sure something is “worth wait
ing for.” Just as my husband thinks
I’m crazy to wait in the carpool
line, what’s worth the wait for
some people seems ridiculous to
others. I would never stand in a
long line for a bargain, but I know
lots of people who do. To them,
saving money is worth the wait.
When I really think about it,
apart from picking up my children
from school, there aren’t too many
experiences I’ve found worth wait
ing in a line for. Because they’re so
few, these experiences easily come
to mind: waiting to enter the
Sistine Chapel, waiting to reach the
top of the Empire State Building,
waiting to dine at an exceptional
restaurant (and this example is
dependent upon the length of the
wait.)
Perhaps the time in my life when
waiting was the most difficult but
the most rewarding was the wait
leading up to the births of my chil
dren. Beyond a doubt, the birth of a
child is worth the wait. And those
months of waiting offered me an op
portunity to prepare, physically, psy
chologically, and spiritually for what
was to be a life-changing event.
We are about to embark on a
liturgical season defined as a time
of waiting. It is the wait leading up
to the birth of a child. No ordinary
wait. No ordinary child. When we
keep the extraordinary nature of
this season in mind, the nature of
waiting becomes transformed. We
don’t measure the wait in terms of
whether or not it’s worth it. We no
longer see the wait as simply an
investment of our time leading to
an expected outcome. What we’re
waiting for has already happened,
and yet it continues to happen.
During Advent, we wait for an
event which no longer requires the
passage of time to reveal itself. Yet
this event, this miracle, continually
reveals itself to us, if we prepare
ourselves to see.
Therefore, we are hopeful, expec
tant, filled with wonder. We open
our eyes to the splendor of the sea
son, and we take comfort knowing
that the darkness of life is forever
illuminated by the joy of Christ’s
presence among us.
Mary Hood Hart lives with her
husband and four children in
Sunset Beach, N.C.
Letters
(Continued from page 4)
Chapelle du Roi
Dear Editor:
This is a letter of appreciation to Stacey
O’Connor and Sacred Heart Catholic Church of
Savannah for recently opening their doors to
“Chapelle du Roi,” a sensational music group
from England. As part of their Millennium
Celebration, Sacred Heart and Stacey O’Con
nor presented a wonderful concert of Sacred
Music.
The singers were brilliant, bringing to life
music from the tenth century up until present
time. We had the pleasure of having one young
man as a guest in our house. We were im
pressed by the “love of life” these young musi
cians had and the way they used and shared
their talents. Without the help of instruments or
devices they enthralled the 300-400 people
who attended the concert with their beautiful
singing.
It was another blessing for this Jubilee Year
and we would like to thank all those who
worked so hard to make this possible.
Joe and Bette O’Leary
Savannah
Note: All letters to the Editor must be
signed. All letters sent to the Editor at The
Southern Cross are assumed to be for publi
cation, unless the paper is informed other
wise. Opinions expressed in the letters are
not necessarily those of the editor or publish
er. Letters may be edited for length.
t i
Avoid using the word “Jews” to mean
“the enemies of Jesus”
By Father Michael J. Kavanaugh
I t is important to avoid using the word “Jews” in
the exclusive sense “of the enemies of Jesus,”
and the words “the enemies of Jesus” to designate
the whole Jewish people.
The tense relationship between the Jews and the
followers of Christ found its first expression in the
manner in which the Jewish people were represent
ed by the writers of the books of the New
Testament. Inspired as they are, these books, the
earliest written record of the Christian community,
reflect the already widening rift between the
Church and Synagogue; a rift that was, over time,
to grow into a dangerous chasm.
We Catholics, because we have been the victims
of some pretty loaded anti-Catholic slanders,
should understand what the Jews have been
through in this regard. Professional Catholic-
baiters such as Lorraine Boettner, Jack Chick, and
Jimmy Swaggart have built their reputations on the
half-truths, misrepresentations, and outright lies
they have told about our faith.
Their zealous attempts to express a sincere dif
ference of opinion have led them to generalize
about what Catholics believe, and to attempt to
associate all Catholics with the sinful acts of a few,
or to create entirely spurious tales of those famous
“secret tunnels” that connect the residences of
monks and nuns.
The same kind of thing happened over the cen
turies in the Christian community regarding the
Jews. In many places in the New Testamant we
find reference to “the Pharisees” with the implica
tion being that all Pharisees behaved in the manner
being described.
In other places we read “the Jews” did this or
that and, without thinking much, we may conclude
that all Jews are guilty of or were responsible for
an act or a belief. The fact is that there was and is
a great deal of diversity within the Jewish commu
nity. When the writers of Scripture generalized
about the Jews of their day, or when today we gen
eralize about the Jews of our day, we almost
invariably paint a picture of a non-existent reality.
It may be simpler to use this broad-brush general
ization tactic, but it really does not represent the
truth about an entire class of people.
Ultimately it is a question of fairness. We would
not want the questionable actions of a few Catho
lics to be used as an example of how all Catholics
behave. Nor should we allow the actions of a few
Jews who lived centuries ago to form our opinions
about all Jews living today.
Father Michael J. Kavanaugh is diocesan
director of Ecumenism. This is the fifth in a
series of articles on jewish-Christian
relations.