"Advent, like its cousin, Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts. Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent. If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts. Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time" (Edward Hays)
I smiled when I read this quote because of how cold the church will be this Advent. It will be a physical reminder for us, to stoke that inner fire. The temptation that hits us every year is to go right to Christmas. Have plans made, the gifts bought, so that Christmas isn't a monstrous holiday. Christmas music hits the radio waves and we are supposed to be all holly jolly. Many people transform Thanksgiving into preparation for black Friday. The meal with the family becomes a carbo load for the next day.
This year I invite you to approach Advent through the Old Testament. Imagine these few weeks a a people awaiting God's promise. Pray as though you are awaiting Christ to come into your life, so that you can experience His birth, His presence in your life in a new way. We have Christ, we have the truth of His resurrection, but before Christmas the chosen people were waiting. Waiting expectantly. This is the heart of Advent. Perhaps the presence of Christ in your life has appeared to diminish, or there are worries that you have not yet laid at His feet. Advent is a great time to reflect on the patience of God's people, waiting for their Savior.
If you are looking for suggestions on how to go about this, perhaps look to the book of Isaiah for Advent. Reflect on chapters 40, 42, 43, and 60. Take a chapter and break it up during the week. If you don't think you can do something like that use any of the many Advent resources out there, we gave three at mass on November 24th. The point is to make Advent a time of prayer and preparation. To stoke the fire, to desire Christ in your life in a new way. Gifts are nice, food is wonderful, but if you don't prepare for Christmas spiritually it's just a nice day. Christ is the reality of hope.
"Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent's intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church's year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart's memory so it can discern the star of hope...It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope." (Cardinal Ratzinger, "Seek That Which is Above")
- Fr. Benjamin Green
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