Advent

7 Catholic Books For Christmas Including 2 You Should Get NOW, Before Advent

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The stores are bedecked in Christmas decorations, and I hear tell there is Christmas music playing on the radio, though I refuse to partake of it just yet.

Even so, it’s not too early to think of Christmas gift-giving , and Advent is just around the corner!

7 Catholic Books for Xmas and Advent

For Adults

Gaze Upon Jesus*Gaze Upon Jesus: Experiencing Christ’s Childhood through the Eyes of Women edited by Kelly M. Wahlquist

This is the perfect tool for a Christian woman’s Advent study – either individually or in a group. In six sections examining six virtues, the reader meditates on a separate event (i.e, the Annunciation, the Visitation) starting with scripture but including analysis, a fictional story to bring the events to life, reflection, group questions, and the study of sacred art. The addition of the artwork and Stephanie Landsem’s wonderful storytelling set this apart from other studies. Useful any time of year, but most fruitful for the Advent season.

Drinking with Saint Nick*Drinking with Saint Nick: Christmas Cocktails for Saints and Sinners by Michael P.  Foley

This beautiful hardcover book includes beer and wine recommendations and dozens of cocktail recipes for Advent through Candlemas. Pick and choose among drink suggestions made according to the calendar, the twelve days of Christmas, the Golden Nights, and more. With each entry, learn more about the saints, the liturgical calendar, and Church history. Makes a lovely gift! Continue reading →

When Doing Everything Right Doesn’t Work

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Where do our expectations come from? We’d like to think that if we do a, b, and c, d will result. If I take care of my body, I’ll remain healthy. If I work hard and make smart financial decisions, my wealth will grow. If I choose a spouse wisely and honor my vows, my marriage will flourish. If I raise my children with certain values, they will adopt them and enjoy the fruits of their virtue.

But we all know the woman who never touched a cigarette yet contracted lung cancer. The successful entrepreneur who lost everything through theft or a change in the market. A woman whose husband decided he didn’t love her anymore and left. Children who abandon their faith and every value their parents held dear.

Sometimes the equation falls apart on our end. After all, am I that certain of my righteousness or do I merely fail to see my sin? Have I accounted for the fallen nature of not only myself but of my spouse, my children, this whole gosh-darn fallen world we inhabit?

There are no guarantees in life. As I tell my children so often, life isn’t fair. Continue reading →

Ready or Not, Jesus Is Coming

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On the first Sunday of Advent, I had the rare opportunity to attend Mass with only my older children, which meant that I could mostly pay attention without having to disentangle a child from my clothes or jewelry or retrieve fallen missals from beneath the pews. Any mind wandering was on me, and not my little cherubs.

I’ve heard the messages of Advent for decades, but despite their familiarity, their repetition seems both more urgent and more fruitful to me as I age. I love the interplay between preparing for this Christmas, this annual celebration of Jesus’s coming, and preparing for Jesus’s second coming.

O Come Emmanuel

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The SLOW Work of Advent

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SLOW work of Advent? What’s that? It seems it was just yesterday I rooted through the closet for the Advent wreath that wasn’t there and filled the Advent calendar with chocolate kisses that were devoured posthaste by a toddler. Now all four Advent candles are lit, and I worry whether that last nub of purple, the first candle lit, will make it until Christmas.

Due to the “obligations” of Christmas, Advent often seems anything but slow, perhaps the quickest wait we ever endure. That’s why this sign outside a church I pass caught my eye:

Slow work of God

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