Monday of the First Week of Advent

✠ | TODAY'S READINGS

Many years ago, a young friend of mine, Mary Anne, found a job, after college, at a prominent magazine. She was assigned to the food editor, and her first month on the job, November, coincided with the magazine offering a hot line for how to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner.

My friend, in her own words had at this time, “no culinary skills”, so she was nervous about giving food advice.

Mary Anne, on the morning before Thanksgiving Day, received a telephone call from a harried sounding young man. He asked, “How long does it take to roast a 20 pound turkey?”

Mary Anne, replied, “Just a minute,” as she turned to consult a wall chart at her desk.

“Thanks very, very much!”, said the man, and he hung up the phone.

Can we imagine the dinner disaster that followed the next day?

But to believe a large turkey could be cooked in one minute is a sign of our times.

The old adage that we New Yorkers do everything in a “New York” minute has been replaced by the demand that everything be done in a nanosecond!

Some things that took days, now can be accomplished in seconds, but a 20 pound turkey still takes time.

Friendship, education, and yes, meals that are wholesome and delightful, take time.

So does prayer.

I frequently asked my students whether they would choose more time or money in their lives, and most choose time.

We New Yorkers are a people who suffer from a poverty of time.

Just as a 20 pound turkey cooked in a minute, is a dreck dinner, so will be prayers that are only “on the run.”

Delicious prayer, like a properly cooked dinner, takes time and loving steps, such as pre-heating the “oven” with devotion and fire of our hopes, followed by stuffing generous handfuls of gratitude, seasoned with humility, and a dash that we are all God’s creatures.

To focus, baste our prayers with humor, directed at ourselves, so our wandering minds can be directed towards the ultimate feast of a delicious prayer and meditation.

Oh yes, and the correct cooking time for a large turkey is 20-25 minutes!!

Father Richard Long

Catholic Chaplain and Professor

Brooklyn College