Advent is over today. Our time of preparation is finished. Did you embrace this time and draw closer to your Heavenly Father? Did you allow His Word and these reflections to open new places in your heart where He could come in and find a home? While you were doing the work needed, He has been drawing nearer to you. Each day closer to Christmas, He has been moving steadily forward. With each Advent candle we lit, we chased away more of the darkness.  

Just like John the Baptist went before Jesus, the people who prepared these reflections went before the Christ Child. They came to you with a word to challenge and refresh you. They invited you to look at the Scriptures in a new way and see what the Lord was saying to you. They called you to become more of who God is calling you to be.

Now that we are entering the Christmas season, it is time for us make another choice. Do we go back to our old ways, or do we embrace the new life born in us during the last four weeks? God promised King David that He would build a house for him and that his kingdom would endure forever through his heir. He told him that God would be a Father to this heir and that he would be a son to him. 

Well, that house was built, and it is your Church. And that heir is Christ the King, born humbly in a manger to bring peace and freedom from the darkness of our sin. He cares about the big and small details of our lives. He has provided a family for us within the Trinity and within our own parish. May we leave Advent and enter Christmas with hearts made new because Christ the King has come to live there. May we embrace the Sacraments where we encounter Christ in a tangible way and then bring Him into a dark world that needs His light. 

Come on people… We aren’t finished… Let’s Goooo! 

Barbara Moore is a wife, mother of five, and now "Bella" to new grandson Sawyer. She has been a member of Holy Family for the past 26 years. She loves sharing the Catholic faith with others through teaching, writing, or just over a cup of coffee.