Dear friend,

Advent Reflection by Dianne Traflet, J.D., S.T.D

As Advent begins, I can’t seem to get a movie out of my head, the 1957 classic film, An Affair To Remember.  Strange. Of all movies! Of all titles! You might remember the plot.  The main character, Terry McKay, races across a city street to see her boyfriend, Nickie Ferrante, atop the Empire State Building. They had been waiting for this date for six months.   As Terry excitedly crosses the street, she is struck by a taxi, hospitalized, and begins to adjust to a life of paralysis.  Meanwhile, Nickie only knows that he has been stood up, and wallows in disappointment and hurt. Eventually, though, in a heartbreaking scene, he learns the truth, as Terry emotionally explains: “Oh, it was nobody's fault but my own. I was looking up.  It was the nearest thing to heaven. You were there.”

Those final lines.   Aren’t they precisely what we strive for in Advent?   Looking up. Finding heaven on earth.  Determining that God IS here.

Here, at Seton Hall University, our patroness, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, would instruct:  "Look up to the blue heavens and love Him.”   Might we make it a practice this Advent to “Look up.” No matter what situations we find ourselves, might we deliberately pause and “look up.” 

As we exit the parking garage (the exit nearest the baseball field) and BEFORE we cross the street, let us look to the Seminary building ahead of us.  Above the doors, we see a depiction of Mary holding her Infant Son. After pondering that scene, let our eyes go even further up to the stained-glass windows.  These windows are in a small Seminary chapel where the seminarians and priests of Immaculate Conception Seminary pray daily.  The Blessed Sacrament is in the tabernacle there.  Jesus is truly present.

So, before we start our work or our studies, let us pause, look up, and realize we are looking to heaven.  Jesus is there.

Prayer:

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the gift of the Eucharist.  Please help us this Advent to grow in our appreciation of your Real Presence. With St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, may we "look up to the blue heavens and love [You].”   May our love inflame our desire to receive you in the Blessed Sacrament, so that our joy might be similar to our patroness: “At last. GOD IS MINE and I AM HIS; I HAVE RECEIVED HIM.” 

Amen

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Dianne M. Traflet, J.D., S.T.D., Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Administration and Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology, earned a J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law, an M.A. in Catholic Theology and Pastoral Ministry from The Institute of Advanced Studies of Catholic Doctrine, St. John's University, and an S.T.L. and an S.T.D. from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (The Angelicum), Rome. Dr. Traflet is a key leader in the Center for Diaconal Formation, and she gives numerous lectures, retreats, and days of recollection, including some specific to wives of deacons and deacon candidates. She is the author of Edith Stein: A Spiritual Portrait (Pauline Media, 2008).