In my home, there are distinct customs we celebrate to mark this favorite time of the year. We always keep in mind how special this season feels for our 6-year-old and his younger 2-year-old brother. Our home fills with warmth as our sons play with their toys and we enjoy my wife’s Abuelita hot chocolate next to a burning fireplace. A multicolored, star-shaped Christmas lantern, known as a parol, hangs in our dining room, glowing throughout Advent and Epiphany as we reconnect with family and friends. Our home is filled with love as we wait and celebrate the coming of Christ. Since my children were born, I have learned three ways to wait for my Lord’s coming at Christmas: in history, mystery, and majesty.
History. During the global pandemic, I connected with a community of young adults on social media, and we formed a Zoom group to pray the Divine Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours. It was our way to connect and nurture our hope through COVID. The community has grown through the years, and these days, I sign online to join laity, deacons, priests, and even a bishop to gather in the stillness of the night and utter over the internet: ‘Lord, open my lips.’ We have learned to listen to the psalms, to pray their words, and to reflect in silence. We remember how God entered our history and continues to walk with us along all our various paths.
Praying the Divine Office is a fitting way to enter into the Advent season. Whether we pray it alone or in a community, the Liturgy provides us with the space we need to pause and join the whole Church in waiting for the Lord’s coming. Through blended voices, we chant psalms and canticles and as we listen to the various readings, I feel connected to every sinner and saint who has prayed these same words over the ages. I am reassured that I belong to a family of Jesus who meditate on these words daily. I feel ready to take on the day with all its joys and challenges. Above all, I am rooted in Jesus who, as a young boy and throughout his adult life, prayed these words in the temple and with his friends. The Liturgy of the Hours has been an awe-inspiring experience, centering my day in God’s abiding presence.
Mystery. God comes to my family through the mystery of the Sunday Mass. Earlier this year, my wife had a miscarriage, and we lost our baby, Cecilia Therese. Grief is complicated, but rooted in the Sunday family Mass experience, we find the strength to move forward each day, trusting in God’s mysterious presence.
Our family needs the Mass. We need worship to center us on what is most important during Advent. The Mass reminds us that the Jesus we celebrate at Christmas is the same Jesus we receive every Sunday in the Eucharist. Our sons often ask us for the Eucharist when they see us receive Holy Communion. That day will come for them, and until then, we teach them to wait on Jesus, to talk to Jesus, and to give Jesus their hearts. Attending Mass as a family roots us in the truth that God will never abandon us — and his mercies are new every day.
Majesty. I have learned to wait for God in the ordinary moments of life. I drop my first-grade son off at school twice a week, and right before he gets out of the car, we say the Lord’s Prayer. Each night, my wife will lead my son in the Prayer to Our Guardian Angel in both English and Spanish. These are simple moments, yet infused with God’s majestic presence.
I have come to call this vocation “familyhood.” It is a vocation in which being a parent and a spouse intertwine with the daily grind of life. It is a vocation where washing the dishes, going on small dates, doing the laundry, and figuring out the next family meal is all charged with God’s loving presence. We must be attuned to these simple moments, for they pass very quickly.
The Lord will come this Christmas. He will come in history, mystery, and majesty. He will come all at once. The Christmas liturgy may not always catch us on a spiritual high as we guide our sons into the Cathedral each year to sit, ponder, and celebrate. Yet we still show up, filled with hope, knowing that Jesus wants our hearts. It is the greatest gift we can give him.
