I live in rural Pennsylvania, where most of my neighbors are farmers, and many of them are Amish. For those who don’t know, the Amish are Christians whose faith practices include eschewing modern transportation in favor of horse-drawn buggies. All of this means that our traffic is regularly backed up behind fertilizer trucks, harvesters, and buggies, all moving at what feels like a glacial pace.

While it is peaceful and certainly charming to live out here, when I’m in a rush (which I too often am), and I find myself behind one of the aforementioned pieces of transportation, you’ll catch me muttering impatiently at best, shouting colorful phrases at worst.

I lean towards the worst side of that spectrum whenever I find myself behind a slow mover right before I’m about to get to my destination. If I’m about to pull into the grocery store parking lot and a harvester is taking up the lane and a half in front of me, I can feel my jaw clench. If I’m almost home and a buggy pulls in front of me, you’ll too often find me banging on my steering wheel and shouting at the orange triangle on the back of the carriage in front of me. 

Good thing I usually keep my car windows closed.

The first time I did my Sixth Step, I listed impatience as one of my primary character defects. The closer I am to my goal, the less patient I become.

This is because I’m still learning how to wait. After all, addiction is very much about having poor waiting skills. We reach for our addictions, compulsions, and unhealthy attachments because our brains and bodies have not been properly trained to wait well: wait for this to pass, wait for the next right thing to make itself clear, wait for one day at a time to become the next day.

Stepwork is about developing this skill. This is why the Church’s Advent tradition of praying the O Antiphons can be such a powerful tool for those of us in recovery.

The O Antiphons are part of Vespers, or Evening Prayer, of the Liturgy of the Hours, during the last days of Advent, December 17-23. These antiphons are prayed toward the end of Vespers, right before the Magnificat, Mary’s song of how her soul glorifies God.

Each antiphon is a plea for God to come save us quickly, and each starts with the plea “O,” followed by a title for God:

December 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)

December 18: O Adonai (O Sacred Lord)

December 19: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)

December 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)

December 21: O Oriens (O Radiant Dawn)

December 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of Nations)

December 23: O Emmanuel (O God among us)

Each antiphon then goes on to emphasize how close we are to Christmas, how much God has already done for us, and yet how much we still need His salvation.

In Latin, the first letters of each of the O Antiphons, when put in reverse order, create a response from God: ero cras, or “Tomorrow, I will come.”

As the O Antiphons build towards Christmas Eve, these prayers seem to poke at our impatience for those good feelings to come to us right now. We are so tired of waiting. We become so tired of waiting that we may be tempted to forget the commitments we made to God in our Advent preparations and instead just dive into acting like it’s Christmas already: sneak one treat, peek at one present, skip one promised prayer.

Throughout salvation history, God has been teaching His people how to wait. Our Hebrew ancestors in faith had to wait first for rescue from the Egyptians, then for return from exile, then for freedom from Roman control. That’s when Jesus showed us how waiting on a cross, no matter how agonizing it may be, is the path to eternal life and never waiting again.

While He hung on that cross, He must have been keenly aware of how close He was to His goal—how very close—and yet He waited, resolute, until He could truly say, “It is finished.”

Death was finished so that new life could begin. Whether we are waiting to just get one step closer to home, one step closer to Christmas, or one step closer to heaven, Christ shows us how to wait well.

Come, Lord Jesus. Teach us how to wait well.

If you’re having trouble waiting, CIR has many virtual meetings available throughout the week. Attend one and learn from others striving to wait well.

Erin McCole Cupp, certified trauma recovery coach in training, is recovering from compulsive overeating, binge eating behaviors, and developmental and betrayal trauma. She writes and speaks about mental health and addiction recovery from a Catholic perspective. Check out her latest course “Real Food: Catholic Virtues for Permanent Weight Loss” at erinmccolecupp.podia.com.