Advent Customs              & Activities

The hope that pulsated through Our Lady’s heart was not merely natural and earthly. It was a holy hope, a supernatural hope. Hence, where and in what was this trust rooted – trust that the Redeemer would come, trust that God would again draw us to himself after he had pushed us away, or after we had separated ourselves from him? Who would redeem us? Who would re-unite us with him, the Eternal, the Infinite? God himself! […] If we now take a look into Our Lady’s life and ask what her fundamental attitude was, we ask: Is her trust in fact rooted in these three qualities – in God’s kindness and mercy, in God’s omnipotence, in God’s faithfulness? We need only look more deeply into and try to understand what she said in the Magnificat. It came so spontaneously from the deepest depths of her soul, so it unveils to us in an exceedingly clear, simple and perceptible way what her spiritual attitude, her fundamental attitude was in every respect (J.K. Dec. 22, 1963).