Diocesan Advent day of prayer offers preparation for Christmas

Intermountain Catholic

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Fr. Tristan Dillon leads the Advent Day of Reflection and Prayer in English, held Dec. 3 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. IC photo/Marie Mischel

DRAPER — The faithful from throughout the diocese gathered in person and online for the Advent Day of Reflection and Prayer, held Dec. 3 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church and livestreamed.

The keynote presenter in English was Fr. Tristan Dillon, parochial vicar of St. George Parish in St. George; in Spanish it was Fr. Dominic Sternhagen, pastor of St. Ann Parish in Salt Lake City.

The event “was a special moment to come together in prayer and reflection,” Bishop Oscar A. Solis said in a message read by Ruth Dillon, director of the diocesan Office of Worship, at the beginning of the English event. “I commend you for taking the time to reconnect your heart with God.”

Fr. Dillon’s topic was “He Will Come: The Poetry of Advent.” During the two-hour event, he discussed six traditional poems that he tied to the liturgical season: “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees” by T.S. Eliot, “For the Time Being Advent III” by W.H. Auden, “Redemption” by George Herbert, “Advent Calendar” by Rowan Williams,” “Nativity” by John Donne and “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manly Hopkins.

“Poetry has always been something very beautiful to me in my life,” he said, noting that he began with Eliot’s poem because it was a “thesis” for his talk. The poem suggests that the spirit of wonder at Christmas that a child experiences should never turn into “bored habituation” as a person ages.

“We, as adults in this modern world, get kind of burned out by Christmas” because of preparations such as shopping, wrapping presents and cooking, rather than remembering “that this is a joyous, exciting season. … As we prep for Christmas, we’re preparing for [Christ’s] second coming,” Fr. Dillon said.

He went on to compare the images of the Auden poem to the experiences of Israel in the time of Christ, when they were suffering under Roman oppression. They were “people in need of a savior; this is the mode of Advent,” he said, noting that the first readings throughout the season are of prophets foretelling the coming of a messiah.

“We, like the Israelites, are waiting, waiting for a savior, a savior who is to come,” he said.

Explaining Herbert’s poem, Fr. Dillon said that at Christmas, Christ came as a child born in a manger, and grew to be a man who was crucified on a cross, only to “to save us in a way that we think is not possible.”

He noted that Advent is a time when Christians remember that they are still in need of a savior and are awaiting his return in glory.

 The poem “Advent Calendar” offers images that depict “life before Christ,” he said, but ends with the coming of Christ as a baby.

While discussing Donne’s poem, Fr. Dillon pointed out that the Christ child was laid in a manger from which animals fed, and Catholics, through the Eucharist “truly do eat of Christ. … That manger prefigured the fact that Christ was born to be eaten, to feed us with his very life.”

Catholics are “a people that come and gather together and witness the reality of Christmas week by week by week that our God has been born — and that is exciting and lovely and wonderful – to save us, to call us to himself, to love us and feed us with himself” with the Eucharist, he said.

“Just as we receive the child [at Christmas] we receive the Eucharist: We look upon it, we love it,” he added.

The final poem in his presentation, “God’s Grandeur,” expresses the awe Christians should feel about the coming of Christ, he said.

“I use poetry as a crutch for all of this because it’s hard to have words for what this is at Christmas Day, so I use smarter people who spend a lot of time crafting words to say the excitement, the energy – the sorrow, yes, the anticipation, yes – but the hope and reality of that manger,” he said as he concluded his talk.

In his presentation at the event in Spanish, Fr. Sternhagen spoke on “Advent: Eucharist and Expectation.”

People sometimes get distracted from living their faith, which is normal, he said, but “the importance of our faith is that, in the Eucharist, we are in the presence of Christ our Lord.”

After some silent reflection and moments of prayer, Fr. Sternhagen asked those at the event to always think and reflect on how to improve in their approach to Christ.

Intermountain Catholic reporter Laura Vallejo contributed to this article.