Dear Parish Family,

   This week, as we enter into the season of Advent, we begin a new Church year, a new opportunity, a new invitation for the grace of God to be unfolded in our lives. What we celebrate in Advent is not so much our coming to God, but that we have a God who comes to us. What we see revealed in Jesus is that we have a God who takes the initiative, who doesn’t wait for us to make the first move towards Him, but rather who takes the first step towards us.

  What the season, the music, the prayers of Advent remind us is that every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, when we pray, our focus isn’t a celebration of what we do for God, but what God does for us. God doesn’t wait until we get our lives together before He comes to us. God doesn’t wait for us to overcome our sins before He enters into our lives. God doesn’t force himself into our lives, but He doesn’t sit up in heaven waiting for us to make the first move either. God doesn’t wait for us to “pick up the phone” and call Him, God is constantly calling us, we just need to pick up and answer.

  Advent calls and challenges us to be awake and aware of those ways that God comes to us. Our faith may be inconsistent at times, we may sometimes miss the ways that God comes to us, but Jesus is still consistent with pouring out His grace and coming into our lives. If we had a God who waited for us to come to Him, if we had a God who waited for us to figure it all out, how many of us would be in a bit of trouble? I know that I would. But, thank God He doesn’t wait around for us to get it all together on our own. Rather, He comes to us, He takes that first step, and He invites us to cooperate with His grace in a new way each day. Give thanks to God for that truth today and pray that you may see more clearly where and how God is coming to you!