Advent countdown

We are now just over two weeks away from the first Sunday of Advent, which is Sunday, November 29 (the Sunday after Thanksgiving). Have you bought your purple and pink candles yet? I did! Nothing like being prepared.

The best way to prepare, though, is internally, or rather, spiritually. Over the years I have written a fair amount about Advent, and those articles are below:

Five Ways to Make the Most of Advent (2016): Practical tips for how to organize your spiritual life during Advent.

Advent 2020: Giving Back to God (2020): A reflection on how Advent is a season of renewal, and our ability in this time to hand over our grief and concerns to the Lord.

This Advent, Consider a Media Fast (2024): A reflection on how removing distracting media from your life during Advent is an appropriate way to better hear the voice of God.

This year something I am carrying with me through the Advent season is the concept of hope, and how now is a great time for hope. Perhaps one of the challenges of the spiritual life is staying faithful to God even when we don’t get our own way. You know, the whole thine will be done concept. I return over and over to the phrase from Job: “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” What a wild concept! Can you imagine thanking God for taking away from you something you loved? (Job 1:21) But that’s what we are called to do - because it is His world, not ours, and because He knows what is best for us, time and time again. And often we don’t see it until long after. Or, not at all, but that is the faith we are called to. And, quite frankly, that’s life.

But why hope during Advent? Well, because it is a season of hopeful waiting and expectation for the birth of Christ. There is a sense of conclusion and something new beginning, as practically the liturgical year of the church ends, but more importantly, because it is the reliving of the moment when the world changed permanently as God entered human history. The old world is over, now the new one begins. It is hopeful because it took the birth of a tiny, helpless baby to transform the world and the human experience. It is hopeful because God used something small to do this. How he does the same with us! So we have hope, even when the Lord takes, that He gives - that He has given.

One last thought: Advent as a season does not supersede saintly feast days, and the coming weeks have some of my favorites, including: St. Nicholas (Dec. 6), Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8), St. Juan Diego (Dec. 9), Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec. 12). Check your church announcements for news of special celebrations on these and other coming feast days. For example, some part of the world have great traditions, especially for children, on St. Nicholas and St. Lucy (Dec. 13).

May you have a blessed and rich Advent season!

What was Mary's interior disposition during the crucifixion?

A cheerful topic, I know! But it occurred to me during rosary this morning, praying the sorrowful mysteries. I ask it because we know, at least, that in the garden Jesus asked that, “…if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26). Being a mother myself now, I have a whole other view of the passion narrative, as it takes place from Mary’s view. I think it can be understood she was there throughout, if she was there at the end, which we know she was (“Behold your mother”). Did she also ask God to “let this cup pass?” Did her sinless nature, and readiness to say “yes” to God, both things we know for certain, give her the ability to accept Jesus’s sufferings, even as she had to stand by and watch? Did she cry? Did she faint? Did she scream? It seems uncharacteristic to imagine her screaming, but that seems like a pretty reasonable reaction to watching one’s son murdered.

I think also about how, long before her son’s final moments, she watched him grow up, and he was always the Son of God, from the beginning. So she saw his extraordinariness from the beginning, and any other smaller persecutions along the way. How much did god reveal to her in prayer, about Jesus’s future? How much did Jesus himself share?

I have heard that tradition says that, after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to Mary first before anyone else, even though the Bible does not lay it out that way. But their bond was incredibly close and significant. I’d like to think there was likely a level of telepathy between them, a mutual understanding of each other and of each of their missions. And perhaps that made Jesus’s crucifixion less of a surprise than it was for the disciples or the world in general.

So, it is a question to ponder. What did Mary do during the passion? What did she say, how did she act? She was, after all, human. But then - imagine her joy on the other side of the resurrection, being reunited to her son in all his glory.

One last thought: I am beginning to get emails from Catholic companies, primarily publishers, saying things like, “Are you ready for Advent?” My answer is no, because that’s still a little ways away. Specifically, Advent this year starts on Sunday, November 29. That’s actually the Sunday after Thanksgiving and just over a month from now. But it does prompt me to begin thinking about it! In a future post I will share some practical ideas not just how to observe Advent, but how to approach and understand its meaning. In searching my own writing, it appears I have discussed this topic a fair amount. I do love that pre-Christmas time of year.

Revisiting Ecclesiastes in a Political Season

Today’s first reading is from Ecclesiastes - vanity, vanity, all is vanity! It reminded me of this article I wrote in the summer of 2020, Ecclesiastes and Turning Politics Over to God.

As I shared over this summer, my family and I just relocated away from the center of the world’s politics, Washington, DC, back to a saner place, my home state of North Carolina. I can tell you, I have not missed the politics. It’s like shedding an icky skin.

However: you really can’t escape politics. Even if you want to be unplugged and removed, policy decisions at the local, state, and federal level impact every single one of us, whether we like it or not.

And yet: God is always in control. And that was the purpose of the article I wrote, to remind us all that when things feel particularly politically heated, and when the political outcome you desire does not materialize, life goes on, because it is God’s will. The world is a history of dark times and political upheaval, and yet here we are. And we must take the good with the bad, the victories with the losses, and trust in Him as to what he is doing. As Saint John Henry Newman said: “God does nothing in vain; He knows what He is about.”

So let’s keep that in mind as we head into yet another political season this fall. Catholics, do register to vote, become informed, and then vote. But remember that you are not in control. The Lord of all creation is.

Happy fall to one and all!