Don’t miss these local opportunities to prepare for the coming of Christ.
UPDATED: Guide to Advent services, programs, retreats and concerts
In Advent, we get ready ‘for whatever God wishes’ for us, says cardinal
“Advent reminds us that a baby, like the little ones that grace your life, a Little One was born for us in time and that event was the real intergalactic moment that transformed human history.”
Katie Prejean McGrady: This Advent, focus on presence not presents
“Rushing to have and do all the things and readying stuff to look at and cling to does nothing to help us let Christ rush into our lives and ready our hearts for the kingdom of heaven.”
Advent with Thomas Merton: Do not wait for Christ — he is here!
Before his death in 1968, Trappist monk Father Thomas Merton — in several of his spiritual writings — suggested that the purpose of Advent is not a matter of waiting for the Lord, but rather of recognizing his presence among us here and now.
Kathleen Norris: Benedictine values during Advent
“Sometimes in this busy world, we need some help to put ourselves in a waiting frame of mind. Brew a cup of tea, settle into a comfortable chair and let a good spiritual writer help you put aside the busyness of this season.”
Advent Week 4: Come Lord Jesus! From the Annunciation to Christmas
“Pondering the Gospel scene of the Annunciation prepares us to welcome the newborn Jesus through the eyes of the graced woman who prepared most intimately for our Lord’s birth, his mother Mary.”
Advent Week 4: Always with us
“Wow are we to be, as St. John Paul II says in one of his poems, ‘more with Him, / more with Him, not merely with oneself’? The answer is to imitate Christ, to imitate Mary — to make of ourselves a gift.”
Advent Week 3: The joy of Advent and pregnancy
“Imagine the countless moments the Virgin Mary experienced during the months between the Annunciation and the Nativity — that special, private time that she and Jesus shared while he was growing in utero.”