Doing Advent

In recent years, I've approached Advent at a breakneck speed, hyper-aware that I'm supposed to "do Advent" before I "do Christmas." The years I spent teaching and working for parishes were the ones I felt the most disconnected from Advent, ironically, because I was so busy preparing Advent liturgies, crafts, and activities that I missed out on the prayerful, silent, wintry season leading up to Christmas. (And let's not forget the excitement and stress of hurling myself across the NYS Thruway/MASS Pike every December to be home with my family.)

The Moon getting ready for Advent
(taken over my house this morning)

The focus of Advent is to prepare for Christ in his Second Coming as well as commemorating the coming of the Second Person of the Trinity into Earth's history.  The liturgical season of Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas, and this year, it starts on Dec. 3, which means the Fourth Sunday of Advent falls on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24. In essence, this crunches Advent into three weeks for 2023.  

Yet this year, I've noticed that Advent started early for me - and not by my own doing.

Silence has beckoned like never before: setting aside my phone and my inner chatterbox to consciously surrender myself to Christ. Even my Advent reading presented itself weeks ago when I happened upon a book I'd received earlier in the year: Jesus and The Jewish Roots of Mary (from colleagues at my former school employer, no less!).

With my new job as a staff writer (and the other half of my job as circulation coordinator), the flow and tenor of my life is exceedingly different from when I worked as a full-time teacher.  There is more open space in my mind, heart, and spirit needed to grow both creatively and spiritually, as it turns out.  Things are not perfect, by any stretch, but I would say that there is definitely more room to receive and respond to God's graces.

God always makes the first move, the advent of grace in our lives, as he did toward Mary Our Mother. My prayer is for all of us to become more open, more receptive, to his gifts of grace in the quiet moments of Advent.