December 4, 2025

Fr. Birch

Shh, quiet, it’s Advent.
Advent is traditionally a still time for the church. Advent, though, isn’t just stillness. It is also a time for getting ready, and getting ready means doing work. Getting ready to celebrate Christmas takes effort. We prepare personally for travel, guests, decoration, feasts, and gifts. In the Church we plan liturgies, choose hymns, practice anthems, hang greens, order poinsettias, write sermons, schedule extra ministers, and the list goes on. If that is not enough, this year we are also preparing for the Bishop’s visitation. Advent is a time for quiet, but it is not a time to just sit back with a cup of mulled wine and rest. Preparation is work.
The same thing is true spiritually as we get ready to welcome Christ’s coming in glory. There are still so many things to do! There are many outcasts to welcome, and many hungry to feed. There are still scriptures to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. There are things to create, gifts to steward, sins to confess, habits to break and to form, lives to change, and people to love so that when Christ comes, he will find in us a mansion prepared for himself. The quiet of Advent is not just the quiet of patient waiting. It is the quiet of difficult nose to the grindstone work as we get ready to welcome Jesus.
Here’s a “Honey-do” list, if you’d like to join the quiet labor:

  1. Set aside time each day for prayer and scripture. Try Morning Prayer if you need a simple, familiar framework.
  2. Create an Advent calendar of charities and give a gift as each window opens. Every dollar can make a difference. (Don’t forget Hospitality Village and Home Starter Kits.)
  3. Make a list of your habits, good and bad, and consider how they shape your life.
  4. Reach out to fix a broken relationship.
  5. Smile at someone who needs it.
  6. Spend time with your community, especially as the Bishop visits and loved ones are received into our Communion.
  7. Make silent space before service for others to do their own quiet holy work of getting ready.
  8. Treasure memories of the saints in your life whom you miss, and offer a poinsettia in their honor or memory.
  9. Share in the (somewhat less quiet) work of greening the church.
  10. Create something new.

Shhh, quiet, it’s Advent. Time to get busy.