It's Advent once again, that most beautiful of the liturgical seasons! Perhaps it is such a beautiful season because, with the First Sunday of Advent, the countdown to Christmas begins. But Advent has beauties of its own, and helps create in us a more thoughtful, reflective mood, and awakens within us desires and yearnings we often are too busy to notice.

What is it that we desire, what are we so desperately yearning for? We live in difficult times. We sense our helplessness in the face of all the political, social, and environmental challenges we face. We see the effects of sin all around us, and more painfully, we see them within ourselves as well. Like Isaiah, we shout out in our darkness, "Why, Lord, leave us to stray from Your ways and harden our hearts against fearing You?" Together with Him we plead, "Oh, that You would tear the heavens open and come down!"

The Advent season is a time for us to get in touch with these deep yearnings of our spirit for a saviour and approach the Lord in prayer, more deeply aware of our need for Him. But it is also a season to get in touch with the awareness that God is indeed our Father and therefore we have reason for hope. He has not abandoned us. It is a time of waiting, a time of watching, a time to cultivate the virtue of hope. We never know when the Lord will return.