Keeping Advent Together

Dear All Souls -

Every year, Advent arrives as a quiet teacher. It slips in before we are ready and invites us to slow down, breathe, and remember that God comes to us not through striving, but through waiting. The Church has kept this season for centuries because we forget how to wait in hope. We forget how to let God meet us in the places where our lives feel hurried or scattered or tired. Advent is the gentle rhythm that gathers us again and says, “Look. Listen. Pay attention. Christ is coming.”

At its heart, Advent trains us to embrace mystery. It invites us to hold space for what we cannot yet see. It reminds us that the life of faith is not a frantic race toward Christmas, but a preparation of the heart. In a world that rushes toward consumption and noise, Advent asks us to become people who can notice God’s quiet work. People who can welcome Christ in the small and ordinary places. People who learn to wait without fear.

This is also the deep hope of our Rule of Life. Attentiveness to Christ. Generous hospitality. Restoration. Shalom. These four movements are not tasks on a list. They are ways of becoming the kind of people who can recognize Christ when He draws near. They shape us into a community that can carry the hope of the Gospel with grace and courage.

The practices in this year’s Advent Guide are simple. There is nothing heavy or demanding. They are designed to help you carve out spaces of presence in your real life, in the midst of your real limitations. Small acts of listening. Small moments of noticing. Small gestures of kindness and peace. These practices may seem ordinary, but they work on us. They create quiet openings where God can speak and heal and renew.

For families with youth and children, the guide offers ways to help your household slow down together. Children are often better Advent practitioners than adults because they live close to wonder. These practices are meant to nurture that wonder, to help your children see holiness in everyday life, and to teach them that God meets us in laughter, in beauty, in kindness, and even in the small moments we might overlook. None of this requires perfection. Only presence.

In the end, Advent is less about doing and more about making room. Room in the mind. Room in the heart. Room in our homes and schedules for God to come in the way God chooses. These practices help us prepare that room. They help us become attentive people. Restored people. Hospitable people. Peaceful people. People who can both wait for Christ and recognize Him when He arrives.

So I invite you to join me in keeping Advent gently this year. Let the guide be a companion, not a burden. Let these practices draw you into the deeper story of the season, where Christ comes quietly, tenderly, and in surprising ways.

May this season awaken in you the hope that God is near.
May it teach you to wait with trust.
May it form us, as a community, into a people who prepare Him room.

Peace and all goodness to you,

Bliss +