The Life of Virtue

This is the final reflection for our Advent retreat.  It is the culmination of everything that has come before it, just as the birth of Jesus Christ is the culmination of God’s history and work among humankind.  I do hope that these reflections have helped you during this season of waiting, watching, and preparing. This week of Advent reveals that God intends to do amazing things in the world and for individuals and for His chosen people.  However, the ways that He chooses to accomplish those things are far from usual or expected.  So, these final days of Advent offer an opportunity for us view reality from a new perspective, and to change the ways that we respond to God’s graces in our lives. In the Sunday readings, and during the next six days, one specific type of miracle stands out clearly above the rest.  Throughout the week, we hear four different stories of God placing life within the wombs of women who were not supposed to conceive.  An...

We are still on our miniature Advent retreat via these weekly reflections.  The scripture passages for the Second Week of Advent remind us that something great is about to happen.  In Sunday’s readings, we anticipate the Messiah who has been endowed with the great Spirit of God (Is. 11); and we hear John the Baptist exclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt. 3:2)!  Remember last week’s readings: we are supposed to be preparing for the coming of the kingdom.  This week we are told that the moment has come.  The time is now.  We must be ready! One of the most important themes of this second week is captured by Isaiah, on Tuesday.  The prophet exclaims, “In the desert, prepare the way of the Lord! … Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed…” (Is. 40)!  We learn that God wants to reveal His face to us, and He wants to make the spiritual deserts of our lives arid again.  The purpose of Advent, then, is to make our hearts...

Advent is a great time for a retreat.  Many folks, however, aren’t able to steal away for three whole days at a time.  So these four weekly reflections, made available on each Sunday of Advent, are meant to be a miniature retreat for readers.  This four-part retreat (yes, even on paper or on the screen) is intended to help readers awaken, or reawaken, faith in Jesus Christ.  In the midst of this “Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” it is right to stop for a few moments and remember exactly why we have a reason for Wonder. The readings for the first Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year may seem odd to some.  Isn’t Advent supposed to lead to Christmas, the season when we worship the baby in the manger scene?  Why, then, do we hear admonitions against “the works of darkness,” and Jesus speaking to His disciples of the last days?  This is supposed to be a season filled with joy and hope and visions of sugar plums and all that, right? The simpl...

While I am not always able to do so (because of my own inner distractions as well as a few squirmy children), I do my very best to listen to every prayer that is said at Mass.  I was blessed during yesterday's Mass to struggle and strain to hear the words of the Preface, which is said before the Sanctus and the Eucharistic Prayer.  The prescribed preface for the First Sunday of Advent is as follows: For he assumed at his first coming the lowliness of human flesh, and so fulfilled the design you formed long ago, and opened for us the way to eternal salvation, that, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest, we who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope. That prayer reminded me why I so thoroughly enjoy the Advent season, and why I am so attracted to the virtue of hope.  The extraordinary seasonal joy that I experience, as well as the attraction to preparing now for what is to come, hap...