What St. John of Kanty Can Teach Us About Advent

Welcome to the first installment of Saint of the Month! This month I’m focusing on Saint John of Kanty.

Saint John of Kanty (whose feast day is December 23) was a student at the University of Poland in Krakow, and later became a professor there. He was also a priest, and was known for always being generous, compassionate, and humble. As can too often happen, his holiness and consequent popularity attracted enemies, who managed to bring false charges against him and have him sent away as a parish priest to a small town in Bohemia.

Saint John stayed there for eight years, after which he was finally cleared of the charges brought against him and returned to his position in Krakow. He remained a professor at the university there all the rest of his life.

Saint John had many different virtues one could focus on; he was extremely generous, he was humble, he practiced a very penitential lifestyle. The virtue which I’m highlighting this month, however, is patience.

Saint John was very intelligent, and as he spent almost all his life as a professor, it certainly seems that was something he felt called to do. When ordered to give this up and go to Bohemia, however, he did so willingly. He had to wait eight years before he could return to his teaching position. One could hardly blame him if he were somewhat impatient at this. But he was not.

The position of parish priest was new to Saint John, and he was understandably nervous. In addition to this, the people of his parish were apparently not very encouraging, and did not receive him with any warmth or enthusiasm. It took a long time for Saint John to win the people’s affection. Again, it would have been easy to lose patience, say that he had tried, and try no more. But he did not.

Patience not only saves us precious peace of mind – when we’re impatient and stressed, all it does is make us unhappy – but it also makes the things we wait for seem even richer. When one hastily rushes into things, it’s harder for their real value and impact to sink in.

I especially wanted to focus on patience this month, because it fits perfectly for the season of Advent. I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of people love Christmas. It’s easy to become impatient for it to come and to ignore Advent. Advent is an essential precursor to Christmas, however. Just the same as one would tidy one’s house before having someone come into it, Advent is a time for tidying one’s heart, for at Christmas Christ Himself will enter it. It’s a time of waiting, yes, but of joyful, expectant waiting, and a time of preparation for Christ’s coming.

This is really a reflection of our whole life, isn’t it? Christ comes to us at Christmas, and He comes at the end of our lives as well. Our whole life should be a season of Advent, in a way; always preparing, bettering ourselves, joyfully and patiently, that we might finally be ready to see Christ.

Saint John of Kanty, pray for us! Help us to be patient in this holy season of Advent, and throughout our whole life. Amen.