December 5/First Wednesday of Advent Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.” ~ Matthew 15.32 All of us occasionally have “last straw” moments in our lives, when we feel we simply cannot bear the weight of one more…
Category: Keeping Advent
Keeping Advent 3: What Fear Is
December 4/First Tuesday of Advent His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. ~ Isaiah 11.3 Midway through a retreat I was leading for faculty and staff of a Jesuit high school, a young teacher raised her hand. “How,” she asked with a hint of exasperation, “do I explain ‘fear of the Lord’ to my students? They just…
Keeping Advent 2: Higher Up
December 3/First Monday of Advent In days to come, the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. ~ Isaiah 2.1 In this age of discord and incivility, we are in need of a vision of hope. The prophet Isaiah — writing perhaps as early as the 8th century before the…
Keeping Advent 1: Directly
December 2/First Sunday of Advent The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah. ~ Jeremiah 33.14 As a little girl, whenever I plaintively asked our housekeeper, Frances, when my mother would return from errands or a volunteer meeting, she would invariably reply, “She’ll be here directly.” The…
Keeping Advent 22: The Lord Is With You
December 24/Fourth Sunday of Advent “I have been with you wherever you went.” ~ 2 Sam 7.9 Some people have a knack for picking out wonderful gifts — a book that delights, a scarf that adorns, a kitchen gadget that saves time. Others of us worry, as we put the last presents under the tree, whether we have chosen well. Will…
Keeping Advent 21: Have You Heard?
December 23/Third Saturday of Advent And all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. ~ Luke 1.65 Several years ago, a poem appeared in the New Yorker, composed by the Italian Giovanni Pascoli and translated by the late, great Seamus Heaney, that reads: “In a huddle by the fence/Neighbour women, hard at the usual talk: About so…
Keeping Advent 20: Let Your Life Sing
December 22/Third Friday of Advent Mary said, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” ~ Luke 1.46 Decades ago, after successfully completing interviews that would propel me to the final round of a scholarship competition, I floated into the car for the long drive home and immediately popped the Hallelujah chorus from…
Keeping Advent 19: Trust, Don’t Verify
December 21/Third Thursday of Advent Elizabeth exclaimed with a loud cry . . .“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” ~ Luke 1.45 There is irony in Elizabeth’s praise of Mary’s faithfulness. After all, the older woman had experienced firsthand the ramifications of not trusting in God’s promises. At the…
Keeping Advent 18: Everyday People
December 20/Third Wednesday of Advent Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. ” ~ Luke 1.38 The culture in which we live and breathe sometimes seems to idolize the extreme and the extraordinary. Leading an ordinary life is not enough: we have to be the best,…
Keeping Advent 17: The Waiting Game
December 19/Third Tuesday of Advent But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard.” ~ Luke 1.13 In the course of raising four children, I have spent a lot of time waiting. Not only waiting out the nine months of pregnancy, but waiting in carpool lines, waiting for toddlers to fall asleep and…