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c w w 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.