Season of Advent: Prepare ye the way of the Lord

Photo courtesy of Deacon Lynn Johnson

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The Advent scripture readings urge Catholics to prepare themselves for the coming of Christ.

By Jakob Rinderknecht

Special to the Intermountain Catholic

This time of year, we can hardly go anywhere without seeing signs of festivity. It seems to be one long holiday season: We see the first Halloween candy and costumes as soon as the Back-to-School things are taken down, only to have them give way to the Thanksgiving decorations, the turkeys and the pilgrims. And pumpkin pie replaces the jack-o'-lanterns on Nov. 1. Before we know it, Christmas is upon us.

Even before the Thanksgiving guests have come and the turkey is in the oven, there have been Santa sightings and countless advertisements for this year's must-have gifts in the Black Friday shopping spree, not to mention the up-tempo carols that pour out of every mall speaker.

But, this frenetic jumping from one feast to another is not the Church's pattern. For Catholics, each major feast is buffered from the others with time and prayer.

Before Christmas, we have the season of Advent, those four weeks of quiet, mindfulness and anticipation that usher in the Church's year with the whisper that Christ is coming. We await not only the celebration of his birth in Bethlehem these many years ago, but the completion of the great promise of his return: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

For many Christians, these weeks are a time to return to daily reflection on Scripture, to family devotions and prayer around the dinner table, and to take time for lighting candles to make the light of Christ's coming visible in our midst. As we gather in the dark, awaiting the coming Morn, we might consider the prayers that the church appoints for our use at this time: the opening prayers of the four Sundays of Advent.

In the first week, we pray that Christ might find an eager welcome and call us to himself. The sign of this welcome is our desire to do good, to live as if Christ's kingdom were already fully present in our midst.

The second week is like the first: We ask that everything that could hinder us from receiving Christ with joy might be removed from us. We pray that we might share his wisdom, and share his life when he comes in Glory.

In the third week, we already see the beginnings of the Dawn of Christ's return and ask that we might celebrate his coming with joy. The church celebrates this joy by bringing out rarely seen vestments in the delicate rose color that comes