Advent Reflections

Each day in Advent, you will receive an email from St. Barnabas with words and images to invite your engagement with the season’s themes of longing and hope, preparation and expectation, listening and silence. Many of the images will not be traditional “religious” art. Advent calls us to notice the signs of God in unexpected places.

We invite you to prayerfully contemplate the images and absorb the words. Consider returning to them at various times during the day, letting them speak into the moment. Perhaps you will hear a word meant just for you.

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December 2nd, 2019

Camino de Santiago near Atapuerca

Advent is a time to keep watch for the unexpected comings of God, to prepare our own hearts to make room for the Blessed One, and to be ourselves signs to the world around us of divine compassion and justice.

Here is a list of ten general practices, each with some specific suggestions for the keeping of this holy season.

In a month that is already far too busy and rushed, these are not offered as one more to-do list to work through, but as ways to slow down, take a breath, pay attention, and make room in our lives for the birth of the Holy. These practices do not begin to exhaust the possibilities, but I hope they may stimulate your own thoughtful and prayerful responses. If anything here speaks to you, or prompts your own variation, try it out – for a minute, an hour, a day, and leave the rest to God.

Let every heart prepare him/her room.