Dear Friends,
Welcome to Advent. “Advent” comes from the Latin word that means “coming.” It is far more than a
countdown to Christmas. Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of Christ—first and second comings.
It reminds us of the great gift of the incarnation – God taking on our human flesh and forever changing it and it
reminds us that the Christ is coming again to earth to complete the kingdom—we need to prepare our hearts and
be watchful. One of the themes of the Advent readings and prayers is also the idea of our waiting for God and
God waiting for us.
These weeks of preparation are intended to be a time that reaches culmination in the celebration of
Christmas Day and the days that follow leading to Epiphany—the recognition that Christ has come as a light to
the nations, and then on to the baptism of Jesus. The four Sundays and the weeks in between are intended as a
reflective time to examine your heart, make peace with God and your neighbor, seek reconciliation, and make
room for Christ.
I know that we tend to fill this season with Christmas parties, shopping, cards, and the preparation work
that needs to be done for family celebrations, but might I suggest that you find a moment of quiet each day so
that you can do the spiritual task of preparing for Christmas. I am only suggesting a moment because I know that
this season flies by. There does not seem to be enough time in December.
Perhaps we can find a truth in this instead of the frustration of running out of time as we prepare for
Christmas; perhaps the speed of the Advent season can teach our spirits that waiting is an active thing, that
expectancy and longing can—must—be nurtured in a heart that still bears the weight of each day’s labors and
worries. The expectancy of Advent is like that of a pregnant mother. The work still needs to be done. The
waiting is not simply a sitting. The waiting brings about the event.
I witness so much love and care during this season as people reach out to loved ones and strangers with
amazing but simple acts of kindness and gifts: children retelling the Christmas story and breathing words to life
on a stage, crayons scratching out stained glass, thread twisted into lace, songs sung that are ancient but ever
new, food delivered in beautiful baskets… Beauty can be rushed past unnoticed; it can be turned away from the
inn. But for those who can see and welcome it, beauty creates its own stillness, creates an eddy in time’s current.
Caught in its circle we may stay a moment while time rushes on.
Perhaps in the rush of this Advent season, might not those moments of beauty, those moments of love be
the voice crying in the wilderness of bustle and haste and distraction? Calling us to prepare a way in our hearts
for the Lord whom we celebrate?
May you find those moments of beauty and love this Advent season so that when Christmas arrives you
can feel the joy it promises as we recognize God incarnate once again. God in the beauty, God in the love, God
in the busy waiting, God for us.
Peace,
Fr. Damian