Cleaning the House Up for the Holidays! A Reflection on Advent!

It is truly a holiday season.  From Thanksgiving jumping right into preparing for the Christmas season, I have many memories of the following situation; the house was in disarray and we were soon expecting the arrival of our relatives!  The entire household would go into full clean up mode.  My mom ran the show, while my dad steam cleaned the floors and organized the garage. My job was usually dusting, vacuuming the hallways and stairs, while also cleaning my room grudgingly.  The reason for all this cleaning?  We had been caught up in our own daily schedules up until this point and forgot to maintain our very house we lived in.

In certain way, I believe this is why the Church has the Advent Liturgical Season.  In a way it is to prepare us to celebrate the birth of Christ!  But like our house before the holidays, we too have strayed in our faith in some way or another.  Caught up in the business of our lives from work, school, sports, relationships, etc. that leaves us internally a mess and a necessary cleaning of our own interior house is in order.  The Church is asking of us to once again prepare our hearts to receive Christ in our lives.  In a way that’s what the Scriptures our saying.  The Lord is coming, make your preparations, don’t get caught off guard.

So, I encourage you during this Advent season, make some time to prepare our hearts to receive Christ; from the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to coming to daily Mass, to spending some time before the Blessed Sacrament in our chapel.  The Lord so desires to come into our hearts.  Let’s not have our house in such a mess that we will not have any room when He arrives.