10 prominent Catholics offer ways to tap into the wonder of a child this Advent.
In 1934, a young 7-year-old Joseph Ratzinger penned a letter to Jesus requesting threee gifts for Christmas.
“Dear Baby Jesus, you will soon descend to earth,” the words written in German read. “You want to bring joy to children. You will also bring joy to me.”
The young Ratzinger, who would one day be pope, concluded: “I would like a Volks-Schott, a green chasuble, and a Heart of Jesus. I always want to be good. Greetings from Joseph Ratzinger.”
The words were written just before Christmas, during Advent in an era that seems light-years away from the flood of Christmas music that has been on the airwaves since the day after Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday deals.
As Mary FioRito of the Ethics and Public Policy Center told the Register:
“I am old enough to remember my mother being aghast when our local department store was fully decorated for Christmas the week after Halloween. ‘It’s not even Thanksgiving!’ she said. I can’t imagine what she would have thought about the current commercial Christmas, which now begins in September. So how do I try and observe Advent while the outside world is celebrating Christmas (and beyond)?”
FioRito recounted a homily given by a much older Ratzinger, then Pope Benedict XIV, given on the first Sunday of Advent in 2009:
“Dear friends, Advent is the season of the presence and expectation of the eternal. For this very reason, it is in a particular way a period of joy, an interiorized joy that no suffering can diminish. It is joy in the fact that God made himself a Child. This joy, invisibly present within us, encourages us to journey on with confidence.”
And it’s this “interiorized joy” that allows the “happiness of Christmas to continue long past the holiday sale aisle at Target. Preparing for the jolt of the new year and to ‘journey on with confidence’ can be easily achieved by a good Advent.”
As we try to tap into the wonder of a child during this period of joyful hope, the Register asked several prominent Catholics about their own liturgical resolutions as they journey on during this second week of Advent.
Sometimes it begins where one started before. Father Bryce Sibley has given himself the task of finally finishing a book,The Coming of God by Sister Maria Boulding. “I’ve tried to get through it in previous Advents, but have never been able to finish,” Father Sibley said. “This year I have great hope that I will make it to the end!”
With a new book out this year, Catholic convert, author and mother of three Leah Libresco said, “At our home in Advent, I’m trying to take up a little more spiritual reading,” she said, adding that she is making her way through Father Alexander Schmemann’s Our Father. With her new book, The Dignity of Dependence selling hot off the shelves this winter, she is also trying to “practice living within limits,” which includes trying to go to bed by 11:30 p.m. at the latest (which is no small feat with three little ones to settle!).
Serving a parish with more than 11,000 parishioners and nearly 4,000 families, Father Bjorn Lundberg is always extremely busy during the year at Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in Winchester, Virginia, and even more so this year, as the parish just hosted the relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
“Since we were blessed to have the relics come to our parish, I’m trying to read a little bit more about the ‘Little Way’ in the context of Advent. I also like to read from the book Meditations on the Art of Waiting, by Mother Mary Francis, Poor Clare, during Advent.”
Helping families to experience the true season of Advent is of utmost importance to the priest in the Diocese of Arlington, especially “rediscovering the hidden secret of Advent,” as Father Bjorn explained.
“We just miss Advent as a culture. I try to use analogies to help them realize not to miss the sacred season. It’s like celebrating the Super Bowl before you had the preseason games or your favorite team playing and getting to the playoffs. There are so many graces God wants to give us and how he wants to work in our hearts during this time of year. It’s just a great time to let God work in your heart within, to help you discover more of his love for you. We try to convey that in different ways to the parish through preaching, through how we prepare the campus in the buildings in the church for Advent, how we approach decorating. Everything is kind of a gradual unveiling.”
In a practical but meaningful way, Dr. Ray Guarendi likes to reach out personally, writing cards to each of them. “One of my practices is to send out Christmas cards to people in my life who have meant a lot to me, presently and in the past,” the host of The Doctor Is In on EWTN told the Register. “And I make sure to fill the card with a handwritten note, letting them know how much I appreciate them.”
For the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, entering into Advent is always a celebration of sorts, as the founding of the order is marked on the First Sunday of Advent. Franciscan Sister Clare Hunter says the anniversary “always sets the tone for Advent as a time of gratitude, awe and wonder at the call to bring Christ into the world through the ‘birth’ of our community in 1973.”
“Advent is a time to refocus on the mystery of preparation and anticipation of the incarnation of Christ born anew into our world. For almost 50 years, my community has made the seven days before Christmas, when the Church prays the O Antiphons, a time of deeper reflection, tradition and prayer in our convents around the world. Our chapels have special ornaments which symbolize each of the O Antiphons: O Wisdom, O Adonai, O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Rising Dawn, O King of the Nations and O Emmanuel, and a reflection or presentation of the O Antiphon for the day is given by one of the sisters. This reflection is a creative meditation about the messianic title of Christ and includes a practical experiential suggestion to help enter more deeply into the mystery of the daily ‘O.’”
Catholic author and Scripture scholar Melissa Overmyer brings the season of waiting alive for her family “by setting up Nativity sets as tangible reminders of Advent, anticipating his birth. We live in a bustling urban city, but over the years, I have collected a large, glowing white Nativity set that we display in our small front garden. It draws people from all over. It’s unusual for our neighborhood, but night after night, it glows like a beacon of hope in the darkness.”
“We also create ‘Gingerbread Crèches’ with the neighborhood children,” Overmyer told the Register. “I turn prefabricated A-frame kits into edible reminders of the story we celebrate. These joyful, hands-on traditions, along with daily prayer, Mass, Scripture reading and Christ-centered music, help our family — and our neighbors — keep Christ at the center of Advent and Christmas. They remind us that amid the rush of the season, we are preparing not just for gifts and festivities, but to welcome the greatest gift of all: the birth of Our Lord.”
Lisa Hendey, formerly of CatholicMom.com and an author, invites others to pray with the mind of Mary and Joseph this Advent. “I pray from the perspectives of Mary and Joseph and their remarkable ‘Yes’ to God’s will for their lives. But I also love praying alongside the shepherds, the Wise Men, and all of those who would have been present in these remarkable moments. Advent is a time for me to slow down and go inward so that, after Christmas, I will be able to fully engage in whatever is in front of me with a heart and spirit that are ready to give God and those around me my very best.”
The Catholic Association fellow Leigh Snead says she has been “all over the Advent map,” rushing out to buy a tree just after Thanksgiving to waiting until Christmas Eve, but she has now found a happy medium after 20 years of motherhood. And this year, she’s adding a digital twist.
“For us, that means we’ll build gingerbread houses on the feast of St. Nicholas, have a family outing to pick out a tree and decorate with only the lights on the feast of Santa Lucia, and eat seven types of fish and seafood on Christmas Eve, while we finally adorn the tree with garlands and ornaments. Throughout the season, we encourage our children to secretly do nice things for one another and to give up some indulgences and little treats, save for the tiny chocolates in their Advent calendars. We light the wreath each night after dinner. This year, we’ve decided to kick off our Advent with a modified technology fast: no video games for them, no mindless scrolling for me. Our Advent rhythm is now as much a part of our family traditions as the stockings embroidered with our names that grace our mantle each year. The intentional observation of the season of waiting for the birth of Our Lord and all the feasts of December provides all the inspiration you need to prepare your home and your heart for the joy of Christmas Day.”
As president of Christ Medicus Foundation and a father of two, Louis Brown has a busy schedule, but he finds Advent to be “a joyful, penitential time to allow the Lord to prune us, to daily convert us to himself, and to prepare us for Christ’s rebirth in our hearts and minds on Christmas.”
This year, he is “trying to pray the Rosary and pray brief spiritual warfare prayers first thing in the morning. My grandfather Oliver Nash, who was a convert to the Catholic faith, used to say: ‘Keep the main thing the main thing.’ The main thing for us as Catholics — more than work, money, professional advancement, or even our human relationships — is Jesus Christ. So putting first things first in our days is really helpful.”
“Second,” Brown continued, “doing a weekly penance is really helpful for me spiritually and physically, to make room for God to be present in my body, mind and soul. I am an adopted son of the living God. Praise God! At the same time, I am a sinner deeply and desperately in need of God’s grace and mercy. On Wednesdays and Fridays, I find it is a blessing to do some type of fasting. Depriving myself of some human food or beverage makes more room for God in my daily life, allows me an opportunity to do reparation and repent for my own sins, and reinforces that — my soul alive in Christ — is in charge of my body (and not the other way around).”
He and his wife Krista also “do a very brief morning offering together to reaffirm that Christ is the King and the Blessed Mother is the Queen of our family, of our domestic church.”
Being a true Tolkien fan, Brown also recommends delving into The Hobbit this Advent. “I find these books and films are great leisure during the Advent and Lenten season because they remind us in profound ways that our greatness, as sons and daughters of God, is most potent in our littleness. They remind us that in being little children, that having great confidence in God’s providence, we can be God’s instruments of the most extraordinary things for our families, our communities and the world.”
This article was originally published by NCRegister.
