Advent

I have been looking around for something to put up that expresses my feelings about Advent. It is a time of penitence and a time of hope, a time of reflection and a time of looking forward. Additionally, in America, we have to balance the secular frenzy that Christmas engenders while we still prepare for Christmas ourselves. Quite a balancing act sometimes, especially if you have children.

Imagine my surprise when I found what seemed to be the perfect introduction to the season in a cookbook ... A Continual Feast: A Cookbook to Celebrate the Joys of Family and Faith Throughout the Christian Year. (By the way Barbara I remember that I owe you a review of this book and fear it never may happen ... that's what happens when I have no specific deadline...perhaps this excerpt will help a little.)

The season of Advent carries a double meaning. On the one hand, people feel a desire to prepare themselves for the coming of Christ into the world, into their lives. And, looking ahead to the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, they attempt to examine their consciences, to repent. Advent, then, has always been, like Lent, a period of prayer and fasting.

But Christians everywhere have felt that there was a great difference between Lent and Advent. Lent is a very somber period, leading to the Cross. Advent is intrinsically more joyful: after all, what it leads up to is Christ's birth. So if Advent is a period of spiritual preparation, of prayer, works of mercy, frequent visits to church, it is nonetheless suffused with Christmas joy.

How are we to observe this season of happy yet prayer-filled anticipation? How can we keep Advent from being swallowed in the worldly Christmas season? Many people find that abstaining from meat, wine, sweets, or other food that they care about for two or three (or more) days a week is most helpful in reminding them that it isn't Christmas yet, that this is a time to prepare the heart. Some focus on the needs of the poor, even greater at this season than usual: not only is it cold out there (just think of the Holy Family, seeking shelter, so long ago), but poor families need money in order to have a Christmas dinner and to give their children gifts. Thinking about poor children can be very important for our children, most of them so amply endowed with possessions. Try letting each child pick out a toy, perhaps even contribute something from his or her allowance, for someone who has no toys. Such an experience can be a great builder of compassion.

Advent has its authentic pleasures. These are anticipatory joys, such as the setting up of a creche, one figure at a time perhaps. Day by day open the windows of an Advent calendar. Play and sing the music of Advent: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

Catholic Culture has some Advent activities listed that you may find enhance the anticipation while helping keep our eyes firmly on the real reason for the season.

Here are two other particularly good Advent reflections:

• A Lesson in Peaceful and Joyful Anticipation by Your Pastoral Coach
• First Sunday of Advent by Recta Ratio