I love Advent. The streets fill with twinkling lights, and festive music plays everywhere you go. It feels like the one liturgical season the whole nation celebrates—whether they realise it or not.
Yet Advent also holds a gentle tension. While the Church begins a new year, the world waits for 1 January to start afresh. Amidst school plays, Christmas parties, and busy diaries, how do we keep our hearts fixed on Jesus? How can we let the mystery of this Jubilee Advent of Hope form us?
Pope Francis in his Angelus address back in Advent 2021, warned us about the temptation of ‘dozing off’ in our spiritual lives. He encourages us to be vigilant and reminds us that ‘the secret to being vigilant is prayer.’ How true that is at this time of year. The noise, the lists, and the glitter can lull us into a kind of spiritual sleep. Yet the Lord invites us to stay awake — not with anxiety or restlessness, but with watchful hope.
All the decoration in our streets, places of work and homes can be a reminder of what is it we are preparing for. In a 2009 Advent homily, Pope Benedict described Advent as ‘an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us signs of the attention he has for each one of us.’ Every light we see strung across our streets, every candle lit in a window, can become a small reminder of the true Light of the World.
Perhaps this Advent, we can pause — just for a moment — each time we notice the lights, and say a prayer of thanksgiving for Christ who comes to bring light into our darkness.
Prayer doesn’t have to be complicated or lengthy. It could be taking five minutes of silence before the day begins, lighting your Advent wreath with your family, or praying the O Antiphons in the final week before Christmas. Small, intentional acts of prayer keep our hearts open so that when Christmas comes, we can truly rejoice.
Advent invites us to slow down, to stay awake, and to rediscover the thrill of hope. May this Jubilee Advent remind us that Christ is near — the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.