This Advent season will be different from all the others we've experienced. Those familiar Advent themes of longing for God and waiting in hope take on a special meaning for us in the midst of the storm that surrounds us. As always, God is perhaps giving us a special opportunity this year to grow deeper in hope and stronger in the embrace of God's love.
As St. Paul says, we've each been given a gift to share with the people of God. And each gift is important to the building up of the body of Christ. So, I offer you the gift of these Advent reflections as a way of inviting you to practice hope during this time when hope is being challenged. There's one prayer reflection of each week of Advent, and a final one for Christmas. Let us together enter this season and wait in hope for how our God might reveal the length and breath, the height and depth of divine love for us.
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God, my savior
God comes when we least expect it. Abraham and Sarah waited a lifetime hoping they might bring a child into this world. Now in their old age, Sarah laughs when she hears, from an angel no less, that she's pregnant. People make plans and God laughs. Years later, a teenage woman in Nazareth is also visited by an angel, perhaps the very same one that visited Sarah, to announce that she was pregnant with a child. And God laughs again knowing there's a promise to fulfill but not in the way anyone expects.
