Advent 2014

Dear friends,

With a grateful heart I write this letter to you looking back on a wonderful year. Already we begin a new year of grace with the beginning of Advent. This is the beginning of my sixth liturgical year with you. How fast the time goes by. I am so thankful for the many blessings that the Lord has bestowed upon me in my time here and for the grace to be here still. God willing I will be here for a few more years as I have three more years on the assignment and maybe the Archbishop will keep me on for another term after that. I keep learning to be grateful for each day and each moment as it comes and in that I am growing in my ability to see Christ present at all times, in the good and bad, and no matter where He sends me. Thinking about the year ahead it is exciting to think that the Lord has so many things in store to draw us closer to Himself. I pray that we will be attentive to see these opportunities as they present themselves.

This Sunday we begin Advent. Advent is a short, yet important season. The world would have us believe that it is already Christmas. Our Catholic sensibility knows that it isn’t. I was talking with someone after Mass last week about this and she mentioned that already the radio is playing Christmas songs, and just when she is ready to start listening to them (during the CHRISTMAS season) they change the programing the day after Christmas.

The world has it all wrong. Advent is a time of joyful anticipation. It is time to ponder the mysteries of the Lord’s incarnation, to imagine the journey with Our Lady and St. Joseph as they journey to Bethlehem. It is a time to prepare our hearts to receive the Savior, the newborn King. Yet the world takes the focus off of Christmas by having all kinds of things to distract us from the source and center of the season. The world would have us focus on things and superfluous celebrations, when we ought to be preparing our hearts to receive Him when He comes and then to celebrate. By the time Christmas arrives how many parties have we attended?

I encourage you to take some time in the silence and darkness of these days to ponder the mystery of God’s love. The light is coming into the world. What are the dark experiences that need to be illuminated for you? How has God worked in your life in the past year? How is He calling you to draw near to Him in this holy season and the year ahead? As we prepare our hearts with Our Lady guiding us and teaching us how to ponder the mystery of God’s love, we will enjoy a less hectic and more fruitful Advent season. As I encouraged folks at Mass last week, I encourage you to make a plan for Advent. How are you going to nurture this joyful anticipation of our Lord’s birth in your life, in your family?

Daily prayer is the key to growing in our relationship with Christ and if is not yet part of your daily routine I hope you can start the practice in this wonderful season. The Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary help us to draw near to Our Lady and Jesus in this time. Mary will teach you how to ponder these mysteries as you go to her. We are giving away a new book by Archbishop Sartain this Advent. I am looking forward to reading it myself and I am sure it will give us some ideas and inspiration on how to enter more deeply into these days of preparation for the celebration of our Lord’s nativity.

May Mary, our mother and the mother of God, draw our hearts on in joyful anticipation of the birth of her beautiful Son, Jesus our Lord.

Fr. Jack D. Shrum