Men's Rosary

Advent has been a time to go inward and reflect.  A time for preparation.  A time to look forward to celebrating God coming to us as a man and to give us eternal salvation.  We prepare to celebrate Christmas day and the entire Christmas season.  We also look forward to and prepare for Christ’s return.

This time of Advent and Christmas, referred to secularly as the holidays, is too often reduced to a time to “get something out of it.”  A time for personal enjoyment and pleasure.  While this is quite fine and welcomed, it is not the purpose of Advent and Christmas.  People suffer loss and misfortune at this time of the year, as they do at all other times.  However, I hear it said that it is “so bad” to have these things happen at the “holidays.”  Well, why not?  Look at what was happening before, during, and after the time of the first Christmas.  There was tremendous suffering and confusion.  Remember, Christ came to us that first Christmas to die for us.  His earthly mother and father knew that!

God uses our trials and misfortune to form and shape us into who we are created to be.  If we only respond accordingly, we will have a stronger and deeper faith and will receive countless blessings.  “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

Christmas is not just a day but rather a season.  We are not to attend or show up for Christmas to get all joy and happiness.  Rather, we should enter into it and receive what God has prepared for us.  Christ came on that first Christmas to everyone, regardless of their state in life, their trials, disappointments, joys, or happiness.  He continues to do so.  We should look with hope for that season when Christ will come again.  Will we be ready?  “Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now to wake from your sleep.  For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11)  Just as we are not to come to Mass to simply “get something out of it,” but to prayerfully enter into it, bringing with us our joys, pains, and sufferings, we should likewise enter this Christmas season.  Use the rest of Advent to prepare for Christ at Christmas and be open to the gift he has for us.  For some of us life is going amazingly well, for others life can be difficult and out of control, for some we will be surrounded with family while others have lost loved ones.  Be assured that Christ comes for all and for each individually.  Isn’t that the greatest gift of Christmas?

If things are going well, bring your prayers of thanksgiving.  If you are facing struggle and trials, bring your prayers of hope.  If you have lost a loved one, bring your prayers for their soul and thanksgiving for their being a part of your life.  In Advent and Christmas, let us recognize all that we should be grateful for, the good and the bad, and consider where we may be found wanting in the eyes of Christ.  This Christmas season rejoice in God and his mercy.  We have a God that humbled himself to come down to meet us, let us gift him by humbling ourselves before him, acknowledging our nothingness without him.

Let us finish our Advent preparation well and be sure not to “do” Christmas, rather, enter into Christmas in prayer and thanksgiving, being mindful that we should also be preparing and looking forward to Christ coming again.

“Sadness should have no place on the birthday of  life.  The fear of death has been swallowed up;  life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.  No one is shut out from this joy;  all share the same reason for rejoicing.  Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all.”   St. Leo the Great