Advent Check-In

December 16, 2022
Author: Hannah DeVivo

Peace be with you! Today, I’d like to share with you about the spiritual graces of Advent. How is your soul doing this Advent season?

“When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for His second coming. By celebrating the precursor's birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to His desire: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC, #524).

As Christians we believe that the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, came the first time two thousand years ago. Every year as we wait for His return in glory, we call to mind that blessed event and enter a time of preparation which increases our longing and desire for Him to come again.

Hope

The first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of a new liturgical year. Traditionally, each of the four weeks centers around a different spiritual grace. The grace for the first week is Hope. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Hope is being excited about the future!

“Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, #1817).

God gives us Hope along with His promise that He has good things planned for us. Because God loves and respects us so much, He allows us to come to Him with our own free will. We can choose to seek Him and trust in hope that He will do good for us and through us. We can be confident in our hope because of the birth of Jesus. God did not just send His Son to give us hope, but to be our Hope. The ultimate gift and proof of God’s abundant love for each of us was born in a stable and endured death on a cross so that we might have eternal life–a life God wants us to enjoy today.

Faith

The spiritual grace for the second week of Advent is Faith. Let’s reflect on two Scriptures from Matthew.

The first: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread,or a snake when he asks for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:7-11).

The second: After the disciples had tried and failed to cast demons out of a little boy, they asked Jesus why it had not worked. He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

From these texts, we can see that faith goes hand-in-hand with hope. We hope with faith that the God who created the heavens and the earth and gave His only Son to us will give us the good that we ask for. God wants us to put our faith in Him because He knows what we need. He has proven time and again that He is constant and faithful. If we put our faith and trust in Him, we will move mountains.

Joy

Joy is the spiritual grace for the third week of Advent. This week of Advent brought the most delight to me as a child. The week of the rose candle and Gaudete Sunday! “Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” The words of this Advent hymn ring in the hearts of the faithful. “Emmanuel” means “God with us.” Before Jesus was born, there was a darkness upon the world from the sin of Adam and Eve. We were separated from God and deprived of the joyful union with him in Heaven. Now that Jesus has come and given us new life, joy abounds—if we receive Him and follow Him. Nothing, not even death can separate us from His love. “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (Peter 1:8-9).

Peace

The grace for the fourth and final week of Advent is peace. Every time I address you, I write, “Peace be with you!” This is a greeting and a gift that Jesus gave to His disciples—His Shalom. In my own life, I have struggled to find peace. I tend to look for it in the wrong places. I seek in vain to find peace through a clean house, a well-decorated room, a new outfit. These material things may bring temporary feelings of calm, but the moment something goes wrong, the “peace” is gone. The house gets messy, the room gets cluttered, etc. The problem is, I tend to attach my sense of peace to these inanimate and imperfect things.

However, when we seek peace in God, His peace is not of this world. It is perfect, as He is perfect. The trials of this world may trouble the surface of my soul like winter winds that sweep the surface of the sea, but far below the exterior reigns an everlasting calm that the wildest winds can never reach.

May I pray for you?

Dear heavenly Father, thank You for Your Advent gifts of Hope, Faith, Joy, and Peace. Please come and fill our hearts anew with Your Holy Spirit, and grant us the peace and joy that nothing can disturb. Please prepare our hearts this Christmas to receive the love of Your dear Son, our Infant King. In Jesus’ name and for His sake, Amen.

Before You Go

Have you asked for and/or felt a spiritual presence of the above-mentioned graces this Advent?

Do you feel prepared to ask Our Lord for the gift of His peace in the coming week?

Did you learn anything new in this article?

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