Here’s the description of the book, which is available in pocket size, large print, e-book, and bulk shipments:

Prepare for the celebration of Christ’s coming with this popular and inviting annual guide. During the especially busy Advent and Christmas seasons, this book offers brief, down-to-earth reflections that bring prayer and Scripture into everyday life in a thought-provoking and lasting way. Through Mary DeTurris Poust’s reflections on lectionary readings from the weekday and Sunday Masses, readers will grow in their understanding of the word of God. This book will help busy people enrich their prayer life during the seasons of Advent and Christmas.

Pre-order HERE. Thank you!

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The post Savoring the Sacred appeared first on Not Strictly Spiritual.

We live in a goal-oriented society, and in this case, Christmas is the end zone we’re running toward at breakneck speed, hardly looking at what’s going on along the sidelines. But Advent beckons us to stop the madness, to stop the running, to focus on the journey as much as the destination. Advent offers us serenity amid the insanity, with its beautiful interplay of darkness and light, its Scriptural focus not only on the coming of the Christ child but on the second coming of Jesus, and with its quiet but constant insistence that we prepare — not just for a day but for a lifetime, and the next life one.

How do we translate those transcendent ideas into everyday practices? Here are five easy ways to slow down and savor the season:

1. Create rituals. Simple daily rituals can serve as spiritual anchors whenever the secular version of the holiday season begins to suck you in and stress you out. These rituals can be as elaborate or as easy as you choose to make them. If fashioning a Jesse tree out of branches and homemade ornaments depicting scenes from Scripture will make you more stressed, find something simpler, perhaps a traditional paper Advent calendar with little doors that reveal the signs and symbols of the season. And there’s always the Advent wreath, a peaceful, prayerful way to mark the days leading up to Christmas. The glow of its candles, increasing with each week, serves as a visible reminder of the light that comes into our world at Christmas and overcomes the darkness for all time.

2. Practice patience. Advent is about waiting, a concept that’s becoming increasingly unpopular in our world of instant gratification and constant connectedness. We want what we want and we want it now. Advent reminds us that waiting can be a good thing, a time to prepare ourselves, a time to rediscover what’s important, a time to serve those who are not as fortunate. When you are waiting in an endless line at the mall or circling a parking lot fighting for a space, try to be intentional about the way you approach and accept the situation. What if you pray for the woman who just stole your spot? What if you smile at the man who runs back to grab an extra item off the rack while you stand in the check-out line gritting your teeth?

3. Seek out silence. Here’s another challenge for those of us used to the constant buzz of the world around us, whether it’s the TV at home, the radio in the car or the Muzak at the mall. We don’t like silence. It makes us uncomfortable. It feels unproductive. Shouldn’t we be doing something during this quiet time? Not necessarily. Take just five minutes each day to sit in silence. Turn off cell phones, TVs, computer bells and whistles, anything that will distract you, and just be. Chances are that after only one week of daily silence, you’ll be a lot better at #2 on this list. Silence breeds interior peace and exterior calm. Try it and see how five minutes a day can change your Christmas season and your life.

4. Rethink gift-giving. Advertisers tell us we need stuff, lots of stuff to be happy, and our loved ones need lots of stuff, too, preferably wrapped in shiny paper and bows. Before you know it, the shopping and spending and running and wrapping has us wishing the Christmas would just get here already and be over and done. Take back the gift-giving part of this season. Tell family and friends to cut back on the gifts they plan to give you and yours. Give from the heart rather than the wallet. Instead of a gift card, find some one-of-a-kind gift that will surprise and satisfy — if it’s locally made, even better. Rather than an extra video game or doll, give a child a “date” with mom or dad, a special day where they get to go somewhere or do something with a parent without distractions like Facebook or work phone calls or TV. Even gift cards can become heartfelt when done right, say with an offer to tag along on the shopping spree and buy lunch for the two of you.

5. Start close to home. You can’t change the culture, but you can change the way you participate in it. Rather than scold society for the ways it doesn’t live up to the spiritual aspects of this holiday season, do what you can to refocus on Jesus and the Advent journey within your own four walls among your own family. Light a candle and pray before dinner each night. Express gratitude to and for each other. Give your loved ones the gift of your time and your presence. Find a charity that could use some help, whether it’s through donations or volunteer hours. Begin to set your own life to a sacred rhythm, and before you know it people around you will want a piece of what you’ve found. That’s how the culture changes: one heart, one home at a time.

This column originally appeared on the HuffPost religion page on Dec. 2, 2014.

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This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn —
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn —
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

Photo by Justin Wolff on Unsplash

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If we surrender to what is offered to us during Advent and give ourselves permission to slow down, we suddenly find life set to a new rhythm, a sacred rhythm that urges us to savor the preparations for the feast rather than just the feast itself. As we walk step by step toward Christmas, we are continually reminded that the journey is the goal, because this is about so much more than a moment that comes and goes in the blink of an eye. If we are paying attention, this journey will coax us along, reminding us that when the bows and ribbons are discarded later this season and the tree is brought to the curb, the inner place where we dwell in silence and the Person who dwells there with us is eternal. If this season does what it is meant to do, we will be left with an internal glow that shines on long after the ornaments and singing Santas are packed away.

While that sounds nice, we all know it’s not so simple. It can be difficult to keep that light shining through all the challenges and frustrations and annoyances that come our way day in and day out. It’s so much easier sometimes to slip back into dissatisfaction, to take up a poor-pitiful-me position and wonder why God (and everyone we encounter) can’t make it easier for us to be prayerful and patient and peaceful. But that’s not the way life works, and what merit is there in being prayerful if its power only sticks when times are good, right?

I think it comes down to remembering that rejoicing (today or any day) doesn’t mean we have to be happy all the time, outwardly bouncing around with a smile on our face from one moment to the next. To truly rejoice is to remain inwardly joyful even when times are hard, because our joy isn’t in things of this world; our joy is in God and what God has done for us.

When I was on an Advent retreat several years ago, we sang a beautiful Taize chant:

“Our darkness is never darkness in your sight. The deepest night is clear as the daylight.”

The play of light against darkness is so apparent during this season, when the ever-increasing glow of the Advent wreath stands in stark contrast to the thick cover of night outside our windows. During these turbulent and troubling times, it is especially easy to become so laser-focused on the darkness that we don’t see (or choose to ignore) the light shimmering all around us. We can even get into the bad habit of seeking out the darkness and stewing there. It becomes familiar and comforting, despite being painful and fear-inducing.

Throughout Advent we hear the messengers of Scripture reminding our ancestors in faith — Zechariah, Joseph, Mary — not to be afraid. Because God is with us, not just during Advent, not just on Christmas, but through every high and low of our year and our life. Once we realize there is no darkness with God, everything becomes clear, and we shine like the sun, even at midnight.

This column originally appeared in the Dec. 8, 2022, issue of The Evangelist.

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The image of John the Baptist in today’s Gospel stands in stark contrast to the secular holiday images that bombard us from every side during this season.

Camel hair for clothes and locusts for food are a far cry from a red velvet suit and a plate of cookies, and, yet, here we are, trying to navigate between two very different worlds with two very different messages. Ho, ho, ho, you brood of vipers!

This Sunday’s readings can be a tough sell. We listen, we hear, but it’s hard not to feel just a little bit disappointed to be handed threshing floors and unquenchable fires as we decorate our Jesse trees and open the doors on our Advent calendars.

And while John’s dire warnings may seem out of place in a season of hopeful waiting, if we dive deeper into the readings, we find glimmers of a hope that will outlast anything we might find under the tree come Christmas morning.

For starters we can soothe our jagged souls by spending a little time with St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, today’s second reading, to offset some of the harshness John is serving out.

In Paul we find endurance and encouragement, harmony and hope. That’s more like it, we want to shout, but the hard truth is that ours is not a faith of either/or but one of both/and. We do not get the harmony and hope without the repentance and refinement through spiritual fire.

We probably should not expect anything less from a God who was willing to break into our world to save us by becoming one of us.

“The Advent mystery in our own lives is the beginning of the end of all, in us, that is not yet Christ,” wrote famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton in his essay “Advent: Hope or Delusion?”

“It is the beginning of the end of unreality. And that is surely a cause of joy! But unfortunately we cling to our unreality, we prefer the part to the whole, we continue to be fragments, we do not want to be ‘one man in Christ.’”

That sounds suspiciously like an updated version of the message John the Baptist brings us today.

This mystery we call Advent, this path through darkness toward light, is not only about preparing the way of the Lord but preparing ourselves for the Lord’s coming — on Christmas, yes, but also at the end of time.

Advent is a season that dwells in both realities. We prepare to celebrate a birth even as we prepare for the end of the world as we know it.

But what does that mean for those of us who are living in the world, cooking dinners (not of the locust variety), buying gifts for family and friends, decorating our house and sipping eggnog?

Can we enjoy those moments of lighthearted joy even as we accept John’s message of repentance? Yes, because Jesus showed us how.

Throughout Scripture we see Jesus attend parties, share meals with friends and find joy in the innocence of children. Ours is not a joyless faith, just the opposite. It is a faith that finds joy even amid suffering, which is no easy thing.

This season of Advent and the Scripture readings that guide our way day by day provide the operating instructions for the difficult task of letting go of our unreality and clinging to the only reality that matters: Jesus Christ.

The rest of the world wants you to blast Mariah Carey around the clock, bake cookies till you drop and spend so much you’ll need six months to dig yourself out of debt. When you think about it, that doesn’t sound all that joyful, does it?

Advent, on the other hand, asks you to slow down, pause, breathe, wait, be. Can’t you feel your shoulders relax as you hear that? If you want a recipe for real joy, skip the world’s version and find what’s hiding in the challenging words of Scripture.

“Our task is to seek and find Christ in our world as it is, not as it might be,” wrote Merton. “The fact that the world is other than it might be does not alter the truth that Christ is present in it and that His plan has been neither frustrated nor changed: indeed, all will be done according to His will.

“Our Advent is a celebration of this hope. What is uncertain is not the ‘coming’ of Christ but our own reception of Him, our own response to Him, our own readiness and capacity to ‘go forth to meet him.’”

In other words: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”

Turns out John the Baptist is right on time, not only in this season but in this period of history. The world tries to tangle us up in heartbreak and division, but John reminds us in the bluntest of terms that this world holds nothing for us.

We belong to the One who is and was and is to come.

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Although I have not written a new book of Advent reflections for this year (I’m currently editing the book I wrote for Advent 2022, so stay tuned for that!), I did write a series of Advent reflections for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. You can find the first one posted today:

We stand on the threshold of the Advent season, called to practice the pause, to savor the waiting, to patiently take this season day by day, step by step, even as the rest of the world races toward the finish line, tinsel and gift wrap trailing behind like a holiday parade float. This is a season that calls us to rest in the tension between darkness and light, between birth and death, between what is and what will be. It’s not easy, but if we are willing to venture onto this road less traveled, what we will find is the peace we have been seeking, the beauty of a world unseen, the joy that comes not from exterior trappings but from interior wisdom built around the One who is and was and is to come. As we begin our journey, plunged into the darkness of the physical world around us, can we set our lives to a slower cadence, a sacred rhythm… continue reading HERE.

If you’re looking for more inspiration this Advent, check out the free, on-demand TV show about Jesus’ life: The Chosen. I’ve written about that in this space before. If you missed it, you can find that original column HERE. Trust me, this is a show that will definitely deepen your Advent practices and help prepare you for Christmas. But that’s not all. The creators of The Chosen have released a short Christmas movie and concert that will be playing in select theaters this season. I was able to get a sneak peek before release, and it’s definitely worth your time. The music is beautiful, the Scripture reflections are thought-provoking, and the story of Jesus’ birth is everything you want it to be and then some. HERE is a website that will help you find information about any and all news related to The Chosen. THIS LINK will take you straight to the Christmas movie page.

I found two other digital Advent devotionals that are worth a look. I have not had a chance to dive deep into either of these, but they look wonderful so I’ll share here and hope for the best. The first is a FREE Advent devotional by Kate Bowler, author of No Cure for Being Human, which you should read if you haven’t already. Fantastic book. But I digress… If you head to Kate’s website, you can sign up for her free Advent devotional, which also includes recipes and lovely graphics. Check it out.

If you are a Mary Oliver fan, you might like The Poetry of Advent, available in digital format for $10 from SALT. You can find the link to that HERE.

Finally, I put together an Advent playlist for my day job at the Diocese of Albany, but I kept the original copy on my own Spotify channel, so if you’d like to give that a listen, you can find that playlist below:

Photo by Laura Nyhuis on Unsplash

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As we move through the next few weeks toward the Christmas celebration that will be the pinnacle of our preparations—the prayers said, the presents wrapped, the homes decorated— we are being given a rare opportunity to stay put, slow down, simplify and find hope even amid the challenges thrown in our path every day. It’s not something that can happen without our willing participation, however. We have to commit to it, to seek out beauty right where we are, to soak in the moments of awe in the ordinary, to name the gifts in our midst in an intentional way. And, when we find ourselves losing hope, to return to prayer and begin again. We can always begin again.

I say all of this not as an expert but as a companion on the journey. Trust me, I don’t have this down pat. Far from it. But I know from experience that something shifts when I commit to intentional living and gratitude for what is rather than focus on what I think should be. My heart softens, my breathing slows, my nerves settle and suddenly there is beauty all around me.

So, where do we begin? With gratitude. Not just in our heads or in silent prayer, but in concrete ways—in a notebook, on your phone, on slips of paper collected in a glass jar. It’s so simple it seems insignificant, maybe even silly. How can this shift anything? It can and it will. Just begin. Every day write down three things for which you are grateful. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. In fact, the more simple and ordinary, the better. I was driving to work one day and spied two bright pink Adirondack chairs on the second story balcony of a little gray house. The pop of color in my dreary day made me smile. Later that night, I wrote it in my journal. Crescent moons, raindrops on the roof, an old man walking his dog, the smell of soup simmering on the stove—it’s all fodder for joy. It begins with noticing and giving thanks for the everyday miracles. Of course, you’ll want to include the big things too—the good diagnosis, the job found, the children safe. Big and small, begin to keep count.

The 13th-century German mystic Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is, ‘Thank you,’ it will be enough.” Gratitude in any form is prayer, and that is a great beginning, but we need to go further. Look at your prayer practices. Where can you add to it this season? An Advent wreath on the kitchen table for mealtime prayers, perhaps? A Bible beside your bed for morning or evening reflection? A small sacred space near your favorite chair for moments of silent prayer in the presence of God?

This Advent, commit to the spiritual self-care that will not only soothe your soul during these difficult days but will transform your life from the inside out. Little by little, you’ll find that the outside world, with its bad news and daily threats, can’t shake the quiet joy that lives in your heart. The secular world has never really understood Advent, which is such a loss, because now more than ever our world needs the joyful hope that comes from being willing to wait, to watch, to find the miracle hidden in plain sight, no overnight shipping or gift wrap required.

This column originally appeared in the December 2, 2020, issue of Catholic New York.

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

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Here’s the description from the back of the book:

Prepare spiritually for the coming of Christ with this popular, easy-to-use annual guide. During the especially busy Advent and Christmas seasons, this book offers brief, down-to-earth reflections that bring prayer and Scripture into everyday life in a thought-provoking and lasting way. Through Mary DeTurris Poust’s insightful reflections on Scripture readings from the daily Mass, readers will grow in their understanding of the word of God. This book will help busy people achieve their goal of enriching their personal prayer life during the seasons of Advent and Christmas.

Thank you to the folks at Liturgical Press for inviting me back for another round after writing the Lent 2016 booklet. For those who like to plan for liturgical seasons years in advance, I’m also on tap to write the Lenten book of reflections for 2019.

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