From Bishop Robert J. Baker's ebook, Reasons for Hope
The Church centers its attention these days on a season we call "Advent," a season of preparation and hope. We are summoned in the first week of Advent to be on guard, to be ready and prepared for the coming of the Lord.
Unfortunately, this holy season gets lost in the shuffle of preparations for Christmas, already begun in our secular society. A maze of glitter and frivolity highlights the material aspects of a feast that is long off, and misses the true spiritual meaning of that event.
So we need the Advent season to help us focus our attention on a spiritual preparation for the celebration of this greatest event of history, the birth of Christ. All too quickly Christmas day will be here. It will have much more meaning for us if we have prepared for that day spiritually.
I invite you to take out a moment each day to reflect with me on our reasons for hope this Advent season. Our spiritual guides will be the psalmist, the writers of other books of Sacred Scripture, various saints, theologians, authors, and recent popes.
Take out a little time to enter into the season with hope in your heart, awaiting this coming feast as the people of Israel did . . . as Simeon and Anna did . . . as John the Baptistdid . . . as Joseph and Mary did.
You will find as they did, that God comes in a special way to the people who steadfastly hope for his coming.
How have I celebrated Advent in the past? How will I celebrate this Advent?
Download the ebook and read a new reflection here throughout December»
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