Do You Remember?
“It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.” ~ Pope Benedict XVI
I don’t know about you, but I needed today’s quote. I’m getting older. I know, I know, I sometimes talk like an old man. However, with my advancing age has come some physical conditions that have caused me to consider the passage of time and what will come. Along with that, I have also started to review my life much more than in the past.
Whenever we go through a life review, we can get ourselves into an emotional mess. We think about poorly made decisions, flawed relationships, failures to love, times we have embraced sin, et cetera. These recollections can lead us down a dark path to sadness or depression. They can also make us think that there is no hope for us because we have failed too often.
When people, especially the elderly, tell me that this is happening to them, I tell them that it is the devil working against them. As we get older, our mortality becomes all the more clear and our death draws closer. Because of that, the devil has to work that much harder to get us to give up on God’s mercy. If the devil can do that, he can thwart the hope in our souls.
Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that Advent awakens memories of goodness that open the doors of hope. How good to remember that even though we were in such a state of sin Jesus was born for us. Even though we failed often, Jesus died for us. Even though we felt hopeless, Jesus rose from the dead for us. Jesus is the author of hope.
As we prepare to celebrate His birth, let us remember all the good that God has done for us throughout our lives, all the times that He has spoken to us through the words of others or through experiences we had, and all the times that we have felt incredibly loved.
FAITH ACTION: Ask God to fill you with the hope that comes with this season so that you may better prepare for the coming of His Son.