The mystery

The season of Advent is an invitation for us to sit and spend some time with the profound mystery that we will celebrate on Christmas Day, to contemplate the subtle ways that the Lord is present in our life, to reflect on the ways we are being invited to open our hearts to God’s love, and to keep alive the hope of new life that the birth of Jesus brings us.

When God became human in the event of the Incarnation and birth of Jesus, something new and unique happened, and it has consequences for how we look at life and for how we live our life.

I believe that the gospel message of stay awake means it’s important that we not go through the endings and beginnings of life and the cycles of life in an unthinking way, but that we have eyes open to God’s presence in our life at the center of our existence. This is how we prepare for the Lord’s coming–to go through life with our eyes receptive to God.

God does something new here. The birth of the Son of God is unique in human history. This is one of the things we celebrate in the Advent and Christmas seasons. Because God does something new in history, God can also do something new in our own life here and now. This means that I’m not doomed to repeat self-defeating patterns of behavior. I can call upon God’s strength to make the changes I need to make in my life. God does something new in human history, and God will do something new in my life. You can count on it.