Greetings and a Blessed beginning to the Advent Season.  We are truly blessed with four full weeks of Advent, as Christmas will be exactly four weeks from this Sunday.  Advent is the time of year when we once again inaugurate our liturgical walk with the Lord Jesus and once again have the opportunity to grow in our relationship with Him and the whole Trinity; with the whole world and everyone in it; as well as with the whole Church which begins this season of Advent together.  Advent, like Lent, is really a Church-wide retreat during which we take a closer look at our lives and prepare for the coming of the Lord at Christmas through prayer, service, fellowship and worship. 

     St. Ignatius of Loyola, our founder and friend, has a special contemplation early in the Spiritual Exercises devoted to the Incarnation - the coming of God as a human being into our world which is the true meaning of Christmas. Here is an excerpt from the Spiritual Exercises, which is really a very thorough retreat manual. In great part this manual provides points for meditation on various aspects of the life of Christ. Read these three points and then consider them, think about them, muse about them, and imagine them and then see where the Holy Spirit might lead you:

1. Contemplate how the Three Divine Persons gazed on the whole surface or circuit of the world, full of people, and how, seeing that they were all going down into hell, they decided in their eternity that the Second Person would become a human being, in order to save the human race, and when the fullness of time had come, they sent the angel St. Gabriel to Our Lady.

1. Imagine the great extent of the circuit of the world, with peoples so many and so diverse, and then to see in particular the house and rooms of Our Lady, in the city of Nazareth in the province of Galilee.

1. Now ask for what you desire.  Here it will be to ask for an interior knowledge of our Lord, who became human for you, that you may love him more intensely and follow him more closely.

     The points to ponder continue and add more to the basic thrust of what has been written, and at the end of the meditation St. Ignatius concludes by advising that I should "think over what I ought to say to the Three Divine Persons, or to the eternal Word made flesh, or to Our Mother and Lady.  I will beg favors according to what I feel in my heart, so that I may better follow and imitate Our Lord, who in this way has recently become a human being"

     For further reading about the above meditation and Ignatian Spirituality, there is a great article on line by Fr. Daniel Ruff, SJ. Go to this web link:

             www.ignatianspirituality.com

     So, take some time this Advent to make this brief meditation, or other spiritual exercises of your own, pondering on the great truth that God loves us so much that he wanted to walk with us in all our ways. Feel the meditative graces interiorly and intensely as St. Ignatius encouraged.  You will have a richer Christmas because of it.  Have a Holy and Blessed Advent Season.  We are here to help you make it so.

Father Matt Gamber, SJ, Associate Pastor