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Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. —Psalm 85:10–11
He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
—Mark 1:7–8
One of our deepest longings as human beings, as social beings, is to be understood even (or perhaps especially) in our most perplexing and difficult moments. We long to be loved for who we are, with the worst of our shortcomings and the best of our gifts. We want people in our lives who will rejoice with us, who will weep with us, who will simply be present to us. In these moments of deep connection with one another, we truly experience the presence of God in our midst, renewing us in his love. This is the promise of the prophets, a promise that came to fulfillment in the incarnation.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”
— Matthew 10:6–7
The excesses common during the Christmas season—too many gifts, too much partying, traveling great distances to see family members—are part of this traditional license common to festivals, especially, as we’ll see, those festivals associated with the solstices. It’s tempting to judge ourselves and others for going too far, but it might be more in the spirit of the season to find it in ourselves to allow such excesses. The whole idea is to drop some of the limitations that we usually bring to serious areas of life and be free momentarily of their weight.
And those who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction.
—Isaiah 29:24
Jesus clearly says the kingdom of heaven is among us (Luke 17:21) or “at hand” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17). One wonders why we made it into a reward system for later, or as someone called it, “a divine evacuation plan” from this world. Maybe it was easier to obey laws and practice rituals for later reward than to actually be transformed now.
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
—Matthew 7:21
Advent is far more than just preparation for Christmas. It has beauty and inspiration in its own right. It’s a fresh start, an invitation to enter into the silence and the mystery of whatever is waiting to be born or reborn in our lives. Paradoxically it’s an invitation to slow down, to come away to the quiet, at the very time our daily lives are immersed in activity—shopping, parties, baking, cleaning. It’s a reminder that the promise of Christ is “already but not yet.”
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines.
—Isaiah 25:6
Pope Francis has proven to be a trusted guide in dealing with the stress of the Christmas season and the anxiety of daily life in general. In his apostolic exhortation Rejoice and Be Glad, he puts his finger on the dangers of a frenetic quest for happiness: “The presence of constantly new gadgets, the excitement of travel and an endless array of consumer goods at times leave no room for God’s voice to be heard.
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