Every Advent my literary radar is on high alert, hoping that this year there will be an advent reading that will fulfill my dreams of a perfect family orthodoxy. One group of expertly bound pages that will draw an envious eye to my living room bookshelf. A book that can be held so ferociously by my theological-accuracy-hungry hands and yet so nonchalantly waved in front of the filtered lens of my camera.

I have grown to love sacrality. The lack of it has been too long prevalent in our free-will western culture. The blessing of our morning coffee, the scrubbing of our pots and pans, the shoveling of heavy, wet, snow. All of these have been callously attributed to our earthly life, overlooked with a deafening silence, a lack of thankfulness and praise. Advent affords us the opportunity to embrace the liturgy of the Christmas season. But the more I look to what we celebrate as Advent, the more I am confronted with the truth that the waiting is over. Jesus has come. He has fulfilled every longing and waiting and wanting and hoping. He has already descended into our lowly estate and has conquered the death that enslaved us.

I never did find that boast-worthy, leather-bound book full of perfect advent words. But no matter, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

May the liturgy of your Advent season become the liturgy of your every day.