We do all these things every year, and some years we do them more often than others. By the time the next Advent roles around though, we often find ourselves back where we were the previous year. So why do we keep doing this? Why does it seem that Christmas never sticks? Why does it seem like the arrival of Christ and the change that Christ's Advent brings is never lasting?

Lord, my God, teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here where shall I look for you in your absence? Yet if you are everywhere, why do I not see you when you are present? But surely you dwell in “light inaccessible.” And where is light inaccessible? How shall I approach light inaccessible?

The most important work of the parish is prayer. Learn to pray well! To help you with that, I have put together these new prayer books. They will be available, for FREE for those who are in attendance at Mass. Extra Copies are $5 each. A copy for another person, someone not at Mass, are $5 each. I will also ship them for an additional $5.

Actually live out your faith! We all have a limited amount of time and energy each day, where do you spend yours. Pray a holy hour each day! Click here for a guide. Don’t invest your limited time and energy into frivolous junk. Go have a coffee with a friend, or a glass of wine or a beer, and share with each other what you have been experiencing in prayer, where you are struggling, where you are finding joy, where you are happy, where you are grieving, where you are excited, where you are stressed. Share your life. Go to Confession, often! Don’t miss Mass. Finally, live the liturgical life of the Church.

“We are here until something happens, then we are not here. I am here because I am waiting, waiting for something to happen. Nothing has happened, so I am still here. I am still here waiting for something to happen. I have had much time in retirement to pray and to think. I would like to share with you about purgatory. Purgatory undoes what the sinful world has afflicted each of us with, it restores our innocence. The world, by way of sin, has destroyed the innocence of each one of us. That what purgatory does, it restores my, our innocence. So I sit here and wait; perhaps my innocence is being restored, but I wait for something to happen.”