Advent is real. We might be tempted to think of Advent simply as a pre-season of Christmas or a big Christmas countdown. Or we might be tempted to think of Advent as a sort of play-acting where we pretend to be in the time before Christ and imagine what that was like. But Advent is indeed as real for us today as it was the centuries before Christ. We long and hope for Jesus the Messiah to come. We need a Savior just as much. It is true that our redemption by Jesus is complete by His birth, life, death and resurrection, but it is not complete for us. We await the fullness of that gift in us.
Advent is meant to awaken the longing in our hearts for salvation. We long for peace, for no more suffering, for our faults and failings to be healed and perfected. Advent is meant to encourage us in repentance, to prepare the way for Christ in our hearts, to reject sin and seek forgiveness—especially through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Advent is meant to make us wait, something we really don’t like to do. Why does God make us wait? Instant gratification is simply not good for us. Waiting and longing make our hearts grow bigger. We are just not ready for the big gifts God wants to give us. Our hearts are too small.
Advent above all is a season of hope. What is hope? The Catechism defines it as, “The theological virtue by which we desire and expect from God both eternal life and the grace we need to attain it.” So, hope is not only the longing I described above but we must add to it expectation and confidence. We know God will come through and give us everything we need on the journey to heaven. God won’t hold back.
Paragraph #1818 of the Catechism goes deeper into hope: “The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity."
I especially like the mention that hope “keeps man from discouragement” and “sustains him in times of abandonment”. How easy it is for us to get negative, down, or to lose heart! Hope is the remedy for this. Hope is a supernatural virtue and gift from God along with its more famous siblings named faith and love. Could we get to heaven with faith and love but no hope? No way. Without hope, we give up.
Advent contains all this and more, so let’s really engage this beautiful yet challenging season of hope with deep prayer, longing, waiting, confidence, and encouragement. We need it, and if we simply skip to Christmas, we will only cheat ourselves. May God grant us much hope!