I usually end up forgetting about Advent until partway through the season. It's easy to get swept into the busy fray, especially with final papers and exams, and not take the time to soak in this season. But each year, as I am pulled into the Advent celebrations, I find more and more value in it, in meditating on the themes brought up, especially in my community here in St. Stephen. It' more than recognizing an event that has happened in the birth of Christ, marking a Christian holiday, spending time with family and focusing more on Christ. It is all of these things in more or less ways, but I think I am learning that it is also being deeply aware that Christ is still becoming present and working in and through people, our communities and in each of one of us. The time of Advent is a time of anticipating this presence. One of the members of our community, Rachel Barham, wrote a prayer for the second week of Advent and it emphasizes this anticipation of the presence of Christ in our lives and the life of the world.
We wait with Mary for Christ to be formed in us,
Daring to trust this hidden womb-weaving,
And treasuring the smallest signs of growth.
As Mary took heart to see
the wondrous swelling of
So the burgeoning life of God we see in others
encourages us that this sacred life grows also in us.
More and more, we long to bring Christ into the world,
Though we know that pain and labour accompany the birth of new life
As surely as joy and wonder.
Groaning and waiting,
Pregnant with hope and desire,
We prepare today a place for your coming,
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