The liturgical year begins with the first Sunday of Advent and in a way marks the Church’s New Year.
With Advent begins new hope and a new beginning. We focus on the first coming of Christ and the second one we await. We meditate on the Advent themes of hope, peace, joy, and love as we reflect on some of the most wonderful scriptures in this season of expectation. Let us challenge ourselves to make this our best Advent yet.
Can we dedicate ourselves to spiritual renewal by recognizing Christ’s presence daily in our lives through the task at hand and in our daily relationships?
Where can we find Christ in the ordinary and celebrate this extraordinarily?
Can we spend an extra minute in prayer, heart-to-heart conversation, alone with the Alone, in the car, when we rest our head on the pillow, on a walk, or a trip to the store?
This Advent let us look at our spouse, parents, and children and think about their special gift to us, how they represent the presence of Christ for us. May we not be afraid to discover how we are the presence of Christ and where that image and likeness may intensify.
May this Advent season bring peace, a peace that may not evidence itself in the absence of conflict or unrest but resonate in the assurance of God’s presence sustaining us through the various crosses or trials.
May we not seek the way to peace but rather may peace be the way to our encounters with others and the world. Continuously, I pray for peace in our world, church, city, home, and personal lives but now with the conviction that this entails a constant surrender to God and acknowledgment of God’s presence at all times. It brought peace to Mary even at Calvary. This Advent, be peace for another, for all others, and for yourself.
May this Advent season bring joy. Joy does not demand constant happiness. It far surpasses it. It tells us that we have this Creator who is madly in love with us, who wanted His only Son to be one with us, to show us how to love and to live, and allowed Him to be the perfect penitent to heal our fractured self, and continues to offer this grace through the healing sacrament of Reconciliation, the sacrament I believe to be most needed in the Church today. How cool, total forgiveness by a God who only loves! All of this speaks to a most intimate relationship to which we are all invited that renews, accepts, embraces, and understands.
A God who loves us as if we are the only one and never to the expense of anyone. A God whose love is manifested by a helpless infant wrapped in swaddling clothes recognized by all regardless of creed and ready for us to pick up, caress, and welcome into our hearts and souls. No wonder we sing “Joy to the World.” This Advent, hold the Infant close to your chest and allow Him to remain there and be overcome with joy.
May this Advent season bring love. Faith, hope, and love are the significant and paramount virtues to our Christian life, but, in the end, it is love that remains for our faith and hope will find consummation in the love we see in that Beatific Vision offered us in eternal life. We get a foretaste of this every time we love and allow ourselves to be loved. It is often said that love is willing the good of the other as other. Not loving another for something we may gain by doing so. Loving the other as other, as the irrepeatable image and likeness of God. This Advent, let us try to love as God loves, wholly, completely, without qualification.
Father John Fisher, OSFS
Pastor
Our Mother of Consolation Parish
Philadelphia, PA
