Waiting with Hope: The Spiritual Meaning of Advent

We must prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord, as He desires to come and make His dwelling within us (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).

Advent (Latin: Adventus) means “coming.” It is a four-week period leading up to the day set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus, offering us a unique, once a year opportunity, to slow down and prepare for the coming of Christ.  Advent is one of the most beautiful and joyful seasons of the liturgical calendar.  The triggers to remind one that the Advent season is at hand, come in many ways.

“It is time to put the Christmas decorations up.” My better half’s statement signals to me this is the start of the festive season.  The Christmas ornaments and decorations, the crib and the tree need to be brought out of storage and assembled.  Some of the tasks like putting the star on the tree, hanging the star outside our home fall to me.  It does involve quite some physical dexterity and gymnastics to do the needful correctly. When all is done to the satisfaction of all at home, we stop back and look at the results of our handiwork.  It is satisfying to see the twinkling of lights on the tree, and the lighted crib beckons us closer.

The Advent season indeed beckons all of us to get closer to Him, in joyful anticipation and arrival of Baby Jesus.  What are the steps we can take to make it a meaningful preparation, as we seek the arrival of Baby Jesus like the wise men did?

One of the pointers for me is to emulate what my late father did without fail, year after year.  Following the tradition of the Syro-Malabar Catholics, where a fast is undertaken for the Advent season, he would give up non-vegetarian food and drinks during this period, whilst intensifying his prayer and almsgiving.  We would follow this practice throughout Advent, only breaking the fast after the Christmas Eve mass. Coming at a time when most of the parties of the year are held and the world seems to be at its busiest with parties galore, this is challenging, to say the least, to refrain from the choicest spreads in front of us.  It would sometimes require us to give an explanation as to why we are not partaking of everything on offer.

The Advent fast tradition is one carried forward from the Eastern Church. Fasting is not only from food and drink we like.  Fasting can be from anger, gossiping and the noise from the various digital channels we are exposed to like OTT/ Whatsapp, and instead feasting more on good Scriptural reading and other practises such as attending Daily Mass, spending time regularly in adoration, silent contemplation, almsgiving, reaching out to the needy, making a good Confession, attending a retreat, strengthen our focus on Him.

It is always a struggle at the beginning of each Advent season for me, to focus on the Creator rather than created things. To fast from the things, I like for a while, to focus better on His coming arrival.  And yet I try and do it.  My father is not with me at Christmas, any more. I try to uphold the spiritual discipline that I learnt from him during Advent season, as I believe his living example of Catholic faith and the practises he followed from his childhood always helped keep his focus on the Lord, right till the very end.  I think to myself that my father too is one of the stars in heaven now, that can lead me to the baby Jesus in the Manger, just like the Magi were led.

This is the reason I will fast this Advent.  From things I like, for a while.  Till His being born as a tiny baby in a lowly manager.  I will supplement this fast with the spiritual practises mentioned earlier in this article, God willing.  I read from the lives of great Saints that many like St Francis of Assisi, followed this practise of Advent fasting which kept them close to Him.  In fact, St Francis of Assisi is the one who conceptualised and executed the first ever Christmas Crib with live animals on Christmas night 1223 in the small Italian town of Greccio.

May my heart be more open to the cries of the weak, the hungry, the imprisoned and those in need, that come before me and I did not notice earlier as I was too immersed in the worldly things I liked to care.  I have to put some effort, and some preparation to meet Him. As the shepherds and the Magi did.  This is the meaning of Advent- joyful preparation and a season of anticipation.

If I do not prepare spiritually in the Advent Season for the coming of Baby Jesus and just show up for the Christmas service, it will be just like any other day.  Christ may not have found a place in my heart, crowded as it is with all the worldly things and desires.  I need to make space for Him, just as the Mary made space for Him by submitting to the Divine will.  I have once experienced a Christmas day without adequate spiritual Advent preparations and I felt so arid inside me.  I resolve never to experience this state again.

The following quotes bring home the importance of the Advent season preparation and a heart that He dwells in:

There are two births of Christ, one unto the world in Bethlehem; the other in the soul, when it is spiritually reborn. Men think of the former much more than the later, and celebrate it every year; but the spiritual Bethlehem is equally momentous. It was the second birth that Saint Paul insisted on when he wrote from prison to his beloved people, the Ephesians, asking that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith and that they be rooted and grounded in love. This is the second Bethlehem, or the personal relationship of the individual heart to the Lord Christ (Ven. Fulton Sheen).

At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving the others with God’s own love and concern (St. Teresa of Calcutta).

The quote from Holy Father Pope Francis on the release of a book ‘Christmas at the nativity” (27^th September 2023) echoes in the mind:

There are many of those stars, an infinite number, but among them all a special star stands out, the one that prompted the Magi to leave their homes and begin a journey, a journey that would lead them where they did not know. It happens the same way in our lives: at a certain moment some special “star” invites us to make a decision, to make a choice, to begin a journey. We must forcefully ask God to show us that star that draws us toward something more than our habits, because that star will lead us to contemplate Jesus, that child who is born in Bethlehem and who wants our full happiness.

 In the Apostolic Letter ADMIRABILE SIGNUM, on 1 December 2019, Pope Francis reminds us,

Dear brothers and sisters, the Christmas Creche is part of the precious yet demanding process of passing on the faith. Beginning in childhood, and at every stage of our lives, it teaches us to contemplate Jesus, to experience God’s love for us, to feel and believe that God is with us and that we are with him, his children, brothers and sisters all, thanks to that Child who is the Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary. And to realise that in that knowledge we find true happiness. Like St. Francis, may we open our hearts to this simple grace, so that from our wonderment a humble prayer may arise: a prayer of thanksgiving to God, who wished to share with us his all, and thus never to leave us alone (Page 16).