We start today the Advent Season, the beginning of a new Liturgical Church Year. Advent means “coming,” a word that connotes “waiting.” It is a season of expectant waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the “flesh” – for his birth. We await his coming in the flesh, we await also his second coming in glory!
In the convent, since we are so familiar with the liturgical seasons, it is easier for us to enter into a particular season. We go with and through it, we expeirence it, we live it; and Advent is one season that has its particular “flavor”, so to say. Although, like Lent, its liturgical color is violet, nevertheless the mood during this season differs greatly from the other. There is joy – but quite subdued. It is a joy of expecting the coming of a loved one. It is a feeling of being certain that the loved one is already very near, and yet still very far. During advent, we prepare ourselves and we await with joyful expectation the coming of the One we love, or rather, of the One who loves us – Jesus Christ! Every year one goes through this experience, and every year it is a different experience. One only has to open one’s inner self to see, to hear and to feel the difference: “What will the Lord bring me during this season of waiting? How will I prepare myself to meet him? How will I celebrate and respond to his coming?” And most of the time, how the whole new year will unfold and develop depends on one’s personal experience of Jesus, the “God-with-us,” during Advent and throughout the Christmas season…and I wonder: “What will it be for me this time? How will the new year unfold for me? What has the Lord in store for me?”……This, too, is waiting! (read more about Advent season)
