Reflection
We are continually waiting. We want to become, to discover, to be complete, to be fulfilled. We see this in the distance as something that is coming. We look to the birth of Jesus as God becoming present among us. Yet, the truth is that God, the Source of All, is present now. God’s presence shouts to us from all creation, from within those we love, from all we sense within ourselves. It is not God who must come but we who must return. Advent is about our awareness, rediscovery, and remembering that “God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God in them.” Not in a nebulous future, but now.
Prayer
May this season be a time of transformation and fulfillment in the Advent of our lives.
Action
Be still and know that God is here.
Suggested Readings
I, the Creator, gave my people life. Peace, peace to the far and the near,
says the Lord; and I will heal them.
Isaiah 57:19
Put on love that is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts the peace into which you were also called in one body.
Colossians 3: 12-15
Advent is an incessant call to hope: it reminds us that God is present in history to lead it to its ultimate end,
Pope Francis
The word advent means “expectation.” What advent can do for us is create a sense of hope.
Louie Giglio
The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.
Henri Nouwen
When we maintain ourselves as a system committed to love, we create a morphogenic field of peace, one in which gentleness and patience flow out of humble recognition of our connectedness to all. The keeping of the memory and mission of Jesus is not about making him the object of our worship but about making ourselves the locus of the reign of God.
Radical Amazement
That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
Albert Einstein
Christmas has lost its meaning for us because we have lost the spirit of expectancy. We cannot prepare for an observance. We must prepare for an experience.
Handel Brown
Creation is thus God’s presence in creatures. The Greek Orthodox theologian Philip Sherrard has written that “Creation is nothing less than the manifestation of God’s hidden Being.” This means that we and all other creatures live by a sanctity that is inexpressibly intimate, for to every creature, the gift of life is a portion of the breath and spirit of God.
Wendell Berry