With Faith and Hope

With Advent, we enter a new liturgical year. Sadly, in many cultures today, Advent doesn’t really exist. We jump straight into Christmas! We have an almost incurable inability to wait; we leap from one celebration to another, compulsively eating. Even caroling concerts, which ideally should begin on Christmas Eve and continue later, are anticipated and held during Advent. We simply cannot tolerate the emptiness and seek to fill it with noise.

However, it is supremely important to learn to wait with hope and delight, to feel the presence in the absence, to feel the hunger to enjoy the banquet better. Perhaps, this Advent, we can learn to wait with hope, taking the time to prepare ourselves in prayer and “putting in order” our lives to receive the Christ Child.

Let us begin this beautiful Advent season as people of faith and hope. As Christians, we cannot live without dreams, without ideals that inspire us and even make us impatient at times. The message of this First Sunday of Advent speaks to us of God’s dream for our world, a world destined to become one of peace and justice. This will happen when the light of Christ shines within it. God will shape this future only with the help of people like you and me. Therefore, it would be good for us to ask ourselves if we are awake and ready to bring the light and peace of Christ into this world and transform today’s world into God’s world of the future. Perhaps it would be good to chart a 28-day preparatory course for the celebration of Christmas. And perhaps the parish Advent retreat taking place this Saturday, December 6th, will be a very good way to begin.

May the Lord always give you his peace.

Fr. Lalo Jara, OFM
Pastor, Mission San Luis Rey Parish