I’ve been teaching a young learner recently, and have also been listening to Advent songs as well as the popular Disney song It’s a small world. I realized that children have this very unique way of seeing their lives and the world around them: they envision their lives and the world around them to be a linear progression of goodness, beauty, knowledge and wonder (i.e. as they grow older and as time goes on, the world and everything in it will get better and better, more and more beautiful and perfect, etc.). All children seem to share this natural optimism concerning the world around them.

It is no wonder that our Lord says, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3). Why do we (adults) need to change? Because as we grow older, our view of this world becomes darker and more cynical. We tend to focus mostly on empirically visible material phenomena: our bodies, which are vulnerable to illness, pain, death and decay; our material and physical security, which are equally vulnerable, our observable physical society, which is vulnerable to change, crises, chaos and tumult, and so on. Slowly but surely, we become like the sarcastic Preacher of Ecclesiastes:

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher;
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

What do people gain from all their labors
    at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
    but the earth remains forever.

All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say. (Ecc 1:2-4, 8)

Children seem to know intinctively that they are destined for heaven, where all creatures will be in perfect peace and harmony. Their vision of this world is actually a vision of heaven: a place where things can only get better, and there is no end to the improvement, betterment, perfection and completeness (or, to borrow the words of C.S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia’s The Last Battle, “in which every chapter is better than the one before.”).

Unfortunately, many children are not brought up to see Heaven as their everlasting and glorious destiny, and to use this life as a good way to prepare for that Destiny. Many parents only prepare their children to succeed in this fallen world, and never instill in them a vision of heaven. This is where the so-called “stress” comes from; indeed, how can people not be stressed? We are meant for eternity; our Creator designed us to inherit everlasting life in the purity and brightness of Heaven. This life in a fallen world is merely a journey through the desert (many saints call it an “exile”) meant to prepare us to inherit our glorious heavenly destinies. If we focus on this fallen world as all that there is to life, we will lose that natural capacity and anticipation for Heaven that children naturally possess. We will eventually live in the same state of misery and cynicism that the writer of Ecclesiastes fell into, bemoaning everything in this fallen world as vain, uncertain and ephemeral.

Which is why, my dear brothers and sisters, it is important to remind one another of our ultimate Destination.

As we prepare to welcome the King this Advent, may we not get lost in the “vanities” of the season, but make room in our hearts for that Glory and Beauty for which we were destined and created.

VENI veni, Emmanuel captivum solve Israel, qui gemit in exsilio, privatus Dei Filio. R: Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel, nascetur pro te Israel!	O COME, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that morns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. R: Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel, to thee shall come Emmanuel!
Veni, O Sapientia, quae hic disponis omnia, veni, viam prudentiae ut doceas et gloriae. R.	O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high, and order all things far and nigh; to us the path of knowledge show, and teach us in her ways to go. R.

[In my opinion, Libera‘s rendition of Veni, Veni Emmanuel is very beautiful and most conducive to prayer and reflection]