Advent Anxiety – What do I do? – Part III of III

Q: Dear Father John, I am looking forward to Advent and Christmas this year with a little bit of enthusiasm and a lot of anxiety. I know it should be the other way around: a lot of enthusiasm and a little bit of anxiety. What am I doing wrong? How can I reverse the proportion?

A: Attitudinal and practical adjustments can help us plug into the grace of this privileged liturgical season, and they can also help us anticipate and combat the difficulties that loom on the horizon, sparking Advent anxiety. In the last post we addressed one of the most common difficulties: Advent busy-ness. In this post we need to address another, more dangerous difficulty: Advent sadness.

The Roots of Advent Sadness

In the United States, more suicides happen during the Advent and Christmas seasons than any other time of the year. Deaths from drunk drivers increase. Family violence rears its ugly head. Why? The season is primarily about joy, the joy of God’s love and presence in our lives and in the world. But for those who are estranged from God and stuck in cul-de-sac of secularism and egoism, being surrounded by symbols of joy can be disheartening instead of inspiring. It can highlight the existential angst that is eating away at their soul. It can aggravate their festering wounds of unrepented sin and tighten the suffocating grip of their regrets.

Those of us who have faith in Christ and a friendship with him are less vulnerable to extreme depression in the face of the season of joy, but we are not invulnerable. We all still have emotional and spiritual baggage. Much of that baggage is connected with our family relationships, our past experiences of growing up. And during the holiday season, we spend more time with extended family. Under the surface, reconnecting with family members who rub us the wrong way, bother us, or have wounded us in the past (or whom we have wounded) can create irritating or painful interior turbulence. Add to that the simple fact that our defenses are often already worn thin because of the stress of busy-ness, and you have a formula for meltdowns. Even on a physiological level, emotional lows naturally come after emotional highs. During these days, we often enjoy intense emotional highs – which means the lows will come soon after. We have experienced this before. The anticipation of experiencing it again is a cause of Advent anxiety.

Going on the Offense

What to do? There is no quick fix. The long-term solution for this source of anxiety is nothing other than growth in humility and closeness to Jesus Christ. Only he can heal wounds caused by sin (our sins or those of others). Only he can teach us to forgive and allow ourselves to be forgiven. Only his light can shine in every darkness. Once again, therefore, we see the crucial importance of not cutting corners during these days on our daily God-time. And once again, I highly recommend spending more time than usual in daily, personal prayer, even if it’s only five minutes more. (It may be that you usually don’t spend time in daily prayer every single day – Advent is the right season to form this daily discipline.)

Our daily time with God, where we contemplate his goodness, power, wisdom, and mercy, is the best defense against these subtle attacks of the enemy of Advent (the devil). But we can also go on the offense. Advent is about the coming of Christ. There is no better time of the year for us to strive to embody this truth in our words, actions, and behavior. We can decide to live Advent as ambassadors of reconciliation, as messengers of Christ and his gentle goodness to everyone in our lives. By going on the offense, we create a spiritual momentum that will enable us not only to withstand spiritual attacks, but to roll back the forces of egoism and discouragement that cloud the hearts of those around us. Make a point of reaching out to others during these weeks, even if it means spending less time making Christmas cookies and sending Christmas cards. A visit to an ornery relative, to a prison, to a nursing home, to an orphanage… A call to someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time, a word of kindness to someone who is struggling, a family rosary offered for broken families… These are ways to embody in our own actions the coming of Christ that we contemplate and celebrate during Advent and Christmas. If we all strive to spread the joy of Christmas, we ourselves will experience more of that joy – just as during the candlelight service at Midnight Mass we enjoy an increase of light ourselves when we use our candles to light the candles of those around us.

The Little Broom Stick

An old story illustrates the beauty of going on the offense during Advent.

A poor little girl was taken sick on a street London one Christmas eve. Some good people found her shivering on the sidewalk and took her to a hospital. There she heard for the very first time the story of Jesus, the Lord and Savior of history, coming into the world as a little baby. One morning, Little Broomstick, as they called the girl because she was so thin, whispered to her nurse. She said she was having a very good time in the hospital, and she hoped she would take a long time to get well, so that she could stay. Then she asked her nurse if she had ever heard the story of Jesus being born. The nurse said she had, and then told Little Broomstick to stay quiet and still, because she needed to rest. But the little girl looked up at the nurse with surprise and said, “You did know about Jesus? I thought you looked as if you never heard about it before, and I was going to tell you.” The nurse’s curiosity was piqued. Forgetting she had just told the girl to stay quiet, she said, “Why? How did I look?” “Oh,” answered Little Broomstick. “Just like most people, sort of sad. And I thought you wouldn’t ever look sad if you knew about Jesus being born.”

That little girl had experienced the joy of God’s love, and she overflowed with it. If we give ourselves a solid few minutes each day to contemplate Jesus in prayer, the same thing will happen with us.

Advent anxiety flows from the subconscious anticipation of the difficulties we face during that season, especially those of busy-ness and sadness. But by attitudinal and practical adjustments that keep us in tune with the message of the season, and by planning preemptive strikes to minimize the difficulties, we can live Advent well. And by the way, you can count on my prayers for you and all the readers of this blog, who are becoming kind of like virtual members of a spiritual family – at least, that’s how I see it, and I always pray for family members during Advent.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC, ThD

Advent Anxiety – What do I do? – Part II of III

Q: Dear Father John, I am looking forward to Advent and Christmas this year with a little bit of enthusiasm and a lot of anxiety. I know it should be the other way around: a lot of enthusiasm and a little bit of anxiety. What am I doing wrong? How can I reverse the proportion?

A: God has new, personalized, fresh graces ready for each of us during the liturgical season of Advent, as he does during every liturgical season. By making small attitudinal and practical adjustments, we can tune into them and live Advent well. Having reflected on those truths a bit in the previous post, we are now ready to deal with the feeling of anxiety or stress that can often come to even the most well-intentioned Catholic during this season.

The Source of Advent Anxiety

Advent anxiety arises from past experience of difficulties that tend to crop up during the holiday seasons. Having experienced these difficulties in the past, we subconsciously associate them with the season itself. As the season approaches, therefore, we anticipate the stress those difficulties bring, and so start feeling the stress itself. If we can pinpoint and name the difficulties, and plan for them, we will be able to reduce our anxiety and turn the stresses of the holiday season into opportunities for spiritual growth.

Busy Busy Busy

The first difficulty is busy-ness. This season involves a huge amount of added activity: gift shopping, Christmas cards, Christmas concerts, Christmas cooking, holiday parties, school vacations, family get-togethers, and decorating the tree, the house, and the yard. In past ages (at least in many parts of the Christian world), as this kind of liturgical-season-activity increased, the normal secular activity (work and economic life) tended to diminish. In the northern hemisphere, this was partly due to the weather. The economy of Christian Europe was overwhelmingly agricultural until the nineteenth century. And during the winter, the amount of field work decreased dramatically. But those times are gone. Now we tend to simply add on all our holiday activity, without putting any of our secular activity on hold (unless you are a student, that is). This increase in activity and work is draining. It causes stress, even though we believe in its value. Anticipating this stress triggers anxiety.

What do to? Four things.

The Top Three Tips

First, if it is at all possible for you to decrease your amount of normal, secular work during this season, do so. For example, some people can take work-vacation time during these weeks, or get ahead in certain projects during the first couple weeks of Advent so as to have more flexibility during the days immediately preceding and following the Solemnity of Christmas.

Second, be realistic. Some people have a tendency to bite off more than they can chew. They don’t admit their limitations. Instead of running up your credit card debt to buy an abundance of Christmas gifts, for example, buy fewer gifts, thinking carefully about each one in order to make them meaningful. Instead of going to every Christmas party you are invited to, choose one or two that will be exceptionally meaningful, and then take the people who invited you to the other ones out for a cup of coffee and some enjoyable one-on-one conversation. Don’t rush the process of putting up decorations; make it a family affair, decorating different parts of the house together as a family, gradually, throughout all four weeks of Advent. Maybe skip the Christmas cards this year, and instead gradually send out personalized thank-you cards after the New Year to everyone who sent you a Christmas card… The key here is to recognize that all the activity has a purpose: to help you (and those around you) keep your heart focused on the three comings of Christ (which converge on Christmas day) and what they mean for your relationship with God. If the amount of activity you undertake distracts you from that, you are undertaking too much. Whenever we say “no” to one thing, if our intention is pure, we are saying “yes” to something else.

Third, spend more time in personal prayer. This is counterintuitive: when someone is busier than usual, shouldn’t they cut down on their God-time rather than increase it? No. Periods of intense activity can put us off our guard, making us vulnerable to egoism and temptations. We become like Martha, “busy with many things,” and we forget that “only one is necessary,” hearing and heeding the word of God (see Luke 10:38-42 for the passage about Martha and Mary). If giving fifteen or twenty minutes solely to God each day during Advent will significantly disrupt your schedule, your schedule is, most likely, significantly dysfunctional.

We will all be so busy during these holy days that it may take a seemingly heroic effort to squeeze in any time alone with God. But unless we make it a priority to have a daily God-time, how will we be able to hear what God wants to say to us, to see what he wants to show us? The hustle and bustle surrounding this time of year can either exhaust or exhilarate us. If we try to live it with just our own strength, we will be exhausted. If we stay close to God, renewing our confidence in his Providence by spending time with him each day, we will be exhilarated.

Fourth, instead of heaping things onto your external to-do list, alter your internal to-do list. In other words, focus on doing what you ordinarily do, but doing it with an extraordinarily Christmassy attitude. Instead of rushing to complete various tasks, what would happen if we looked at each task (even the normal ones) as part of an Advent mission, a campaign to spread the Christmas spirit throughout our sphere of influence?

There is a beautiful, true story about one woman who re-discovered this active Christian spirit not during the four weeks of Advent, but two days after Christmas. The heroine of our story lived decades ago in the Midwest. She was the owner of a news-stand and novelty shop in small town. One year, shortly before Christmas, she fell sick and spent the whole holiday confined to bed. She felt rather gloomy and even somewhat bitter about missing Midnight Mass and the other Christmas celebrations. But when she re-opened her store two days after Christmas she had an idea: “Why not make today my lost Christmas?” She carried out her plan by putting the spirit of Christmas into the whole day. She smiled more frequently and more warmly than usual. She tried to be extra accommodating and friendly with her clients. She even gave spontaneous discounts to customers who were low on cash. After closing the store for the day, she took some small presents to several home-bound neighbors. And she also visited some poor families to give candy to the children. By the time she came home, she was so full of joy and the spirit of Christmas that she had never felt happier in her life. She decided from then on to keep the spirit of Christmas as long as she possibly could.

How different Advent would be, for ourselves and for those around us, if, with the help of God’s grace, we were to spend these four weeks actively ushering in the spirit of Christmas, instead of passively waiting for it to arrive while we scramble to check things off our to-do lists!

Knowing that the extra busy-ness of this season, which is already weighing on our subconscious, is one cause of Advent anxiety can help us make a pre-emptive strike against its negative effects, reducing anxiety now and reducing stress later, and helping us live Advent the way God wants us to.

But busy-ness isn’t the only difficulty Advent brings with it. We’ll look at another one next time.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC, ThD