Note: This was originally posted on November 27, 2016
Dear God, I need Advent. I need the lights flickering in the darkness, the purple and pink against the wreath of green. I need the swollen belly of Mother Mary, her patient, jubilant waiting for a baby she didn't plan, for the conclusion of a pregnancy she never foresaw but nonetheless saw through. I need the Eternal, flesh-and-blood beacon of hope to clear my glassy-eyed view of a world I both know and no longer recognize. Dear God, I need Advent. ----- Dear Jesus, I need Advent. I need the creeping, humbling movement towards Your birth; the steady, unfaltering flow towards a life beginning and ending in a human cry. I need the jubilance of Aunt Elizabeth, the kicking fancy of Your cousin John in her womb as he heard Your mother enter their home. I need the striking, steely confidence of peasants in Nazareth and Bethlehem and Judea; the assurance that You, O Son of God and God-With-Us, lived your 33 years among the poorest of the poor. I need the reminder that You were shielded and cared for by the humble time and time again when You, Infant Lowly, could not shield or care for Yourself. Dear Jesus, I need Advent. ----- Dear friends, I need Advent. I need the breathless, despair-battling waits on nights that fall too early and last too long. I need the glorious anticipation of a Redeemer come down to earth, nurtured and grown in the belly of a Woman like me, a Woman whose courage encourages me. I need the company of shepherds and angels. I need the exquisite yearning that arises in counting down the weeks until I join an eternal choir that declares "Glory to God in the highest!" I need the Divine descent to incarnation that I, and all of my [human] race, might be raised up. I need Advent with every fibre of my being. And, thank God, Advent is here.
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