Bishop Scott Mayer has issued an Advent message to the diocese, encouraging us: “Give yourself over to hope.”
This has been a rough year, with hurricanes and earthquakes, and many manifestations of division, anger and hatred.
Yet in Advent we are called to live in anticipation and hope. And we can do so because the hope of this season isn’t about our possibilities and capabilities, but about God’s ability to make all things new. It’s about God’s ability to break into our lives at any moment and infuse them with hope, meaning, and the capacity for change.
How many times in Scripture do we hear of God taking the most unimpressive, even unfaithful, people and revealing God’s self through their lives in astonishing ways? If God can do so with poor Galilean fisherfolk and with a young Jewish girl, God can do so with us.
So give yourself over to hope. Because that empty manger is about to be filled with the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, wrapped in swaddling clothes, adored by shepherds and kings.
Have a blessed Advent, and a Merry Christmas.