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Dear Families,
This week, we celebrated the first week of Advent, where we heard about the many ways that we are called to be people of hope. Now in the Advent readings, being hopeful doesn’t mean waiting for Santa to bring the toy you’ve told absolutely no one you wanted. It also doesn’t mean life suddenly becoming a Hallmark movie simply by visiting a small town over the Christmas holiday. Both of these things are not what we mean when talking about being people of hope. Rather, to be hopeful during Advent means to believe that something and someone greater is ahead.
In many cultures and communities around the world, the first candle of Advent is actually not referenced as “the hope candle” but rather the Prophecy candle, named after all the prophets who foretold of the coming of the Lord, a savior, THE Savior, decades and centuries before He arrived. They waited in hopeful anticipation for something greater than themselves to come and be the light in the darkness, the right to the wrong in the world, and to save God’s people from lives of sin, and a world in need of His earthly presence. What would it be like if today, and for our whole lives, we all just became people of hope? People, who didn’t lose sight of our faith, or in our trust and love of God when things didn’t go according to our plans, believing, even without seeing, that God would save us all, according to his will, and hold us in the palm of his hands always? To be people of hope, to be prophets and believers of something greater ahead, takes courage and it takes light. It takes saying YES, even when others around you may say no.
On a cold December day, Juan Diego was a man who had hope. He was a man who said YES, and was a person of great faith and spirit. He said YES to listen to his heart, to Mary, the Mother of God, who appeared to him. This took courage, and persistence, a willingness to not give up and have great hope in something that for a time, only he could see--- the apparition of Mary. During Advent, in 1531, Juan Diego was a person of hope.
In the next few days, we have many opportunities to be people of hope at OLG. This week for example, we hired an excellent new fourth grade teacher, Ms. Chatham! Together as a community, we prayed in anticipation, planned, and were hopeful. Look what happens when we have faith that God will take the reins! Read her bio here!
Tomorrow, we have opportunities again to be people of hope once more at The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, where we attend Mass as a school. On Sunday, we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a parish community at 11am Mass, and once more on the 12th as a school. We are people of hope, a community founded on it, and in a belief of something so much greater than ourselves. We are prophecy people in our own ways, believing that God will come again.
This week, I challenge you as a family to not focus solely on the silly things that this season brings-- like the Hallmark movies and toys from Santa, but on the ways that we can be like Juan Diego and Mary, and the prophets of days gone by. Focus on hope. Be the light in the darkness, and as a family ask yourselves-- What will you do this week to be people of hope in our community and in the world?
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