{"id":180209,"date":"2015-11-30T06:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.austincnm.com\/?p=180209"},"modified":"2015-11-30T08:59:08","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T14:59:08","slug":"180209","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/180209\/","title":{"rendered":"Advent: The longing in our hearts for Love Incarnate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FirstSundayAdvent2015Shrine\"
\n“May the Lord make you increase and abound in love,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span>for one another and for all,<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\njust as we have for you, <\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\nso as to strengthen your hearts, <\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\nto be blameless in holiness before our God and Father <\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\nat the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones. Amen” (1 Thes 3:12)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We heard these words yesterday in the\u00a02nd reading for the first week of Advent. And it got me thinking. Something about loving each other makes our hearts stronger, and something about loving each other also moves us along on the path towards becoming “blameless in holiness before our God and Father.” We are so wired for relationships, that in learning to love, our holiness is perfected.<\/p>\n

And yet this path of love and holiness is arduous, it requires strength, and more over – to reach love’s real fulness, we must call on God Himself – may the Lord make you increase and abound in love!<\/em><\/p>\n

How is this connected to the season of Advent? Advent is a season of longing. Over the next few weeks, through the readings from the Old Testament, we will harken back to the generations and generations of the\u00a0Jewish people who longed for\u00a0the Messiah, who prayed for and awaited His coming. We will relive this waiting. We will hear and anticipate that soon the longing will be over, and we will hear the call to prepare ourselves for that moment, when our longings will be answered by the arrival of God Himself, divine Love Incarnate in a human child. As we sang this morning in mass:<\/p>\n

“There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord,
\nfor you to reveal yourself to us.
\nThere is a longing in our hearts
\nfor love we only find in you, our God.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That song, that second reading, and indeed this whole season, call me to reflect on my own relationships, the practice of love in my life, and the longings of my heart. What an incredible daily challenge it is to love well! And I’ve really begun to wonder if anyone can love well without God. I suppose you could say that since love is God, anyone who knows love knows God, and I believe that this is true. \u00a0And at the same time, it is also seems that knowing Divine Love as a Person unlocks an incredibly rich experience of relationship that is not possible when love is related to as an idea. We are wired for relationships, to relate person to person, in an\u00a0I and Thou<\/a>\u00a0relationship (M. Buber).<\/p>\n

It’s such a challenge to hold on to our selves and also stay connected to each other in mature love. What depth and breadth of love is possible when we aren’t connected upwards, upwards to God? I think it makes a difference. It makes a difference whether we direct the longings of our hearts to an idea or to a Person.<\/p>\n

“If it becomes an inner experience for you that we are not surrendering to fate, not to an “it” but to a personal, endlessly loving Father, then we have a position that cannot be shaken by anything in the world. Then we will see everything, the greatest and the smallest, the most pleasant and the most difficult, in a very different perspective. Eternity reaches into our transitory thinking, loving and living, and our little heart expands into endless universes.” Fr Joseph Kentenich<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So here’s my Advent Challenge for you: I invite you to spend some time this first week of Advent reflecting on the longings of your own heart. What cries and petitions arise from your soul? And what longings do you hear from your loved ones? Your family? What are the longings of your\u00a0community? Of your nation?<\/p>\n

\"Advent\"<\/a>And then I invite you to give your longings to the Father, to bring all your petitions to His Heart. In this way, we may tether our longings in Heaven, so that they may be fulfilled on earth. In this way, we may increasingly enter into a loving relationship with God the Father, who wrote that longing into our hearts, that we might find our way home through these wintery months to find rest in His warmth, the gift of Himself to the world in Christ Jesus.<\/p>\n

Dear Blessed Mother, help us direct the longings of hearts to God, that our “little hearts” might expand in love as yours did when you sang your\u00a0Magnificat<\/a><\/em>. Help us to order our inner life this Advent season, so that our souls may find a stillness and\u00a0emptiness able to receive Christ. Amen.<\/p>\n

(There is a Longing lyrics:)<\/p>\n

There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord,
\nfor you to reveal yourself to us.
\nThere is a longing in our hearts
\nfor love we only find in you, our God.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. For justice, for freedom,
\nfor mercy, hear our prayer.
\nIn sorrow, in grief,
\nbe near, hear our prayer, O God.<\/p>\n

2. For wisdom, for courage,
\nfor comfort, hear our prayer.
\nIn weakness, in fear,
\nbe near, hear our prayer, O God.<\/p>\n

3. For healing, for wholeness,
\nfor new life, hear our prayer.
\nIn sickness, in death,
\nbe near, hear our prayer, O God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“May the Lord make you increase and abound in love,\u00a0for one another and for all, just as we have for you, so as to strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones. Amen” (1 Thes 3:12) We heard… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,90,89,88,2976],"tags":[384,3020,50,2890,3019,1129,3022,193,3021,2138,81,101,74,2498,1973,1660],"class_list":["post-180209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-blog","category-faith-blog","category-family","category-marriage-blog","category-prayer","tag-advent","tag-advent-2015","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-first-sunday-of-advent","tag-joseph-kentenich","tag-liturgical-seasons","tag-love","tag-marian-shrine","tag-marian-spirituality","tag-marriage","tag-mary","tag-prayer","tag-prayer-life","tag-schoenstatt","tag-spiritual-life","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":339830,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/mary-never-enough\/","url_meta":{"origin":180209,"position":0},"title":"Of Mary, Never Enough","author":"Rachel","date":"December 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\"De Maria, nunquam satis!,\" St Bernard of Clairvaux once said. Of Mary, never enough! \u00a0In these last few days before the great feast of Christmas, perhaps you're feeling harried or haven't had time to prayerfully prepare, or just aren't quite into the Christmas. Or perhaps you're drowning\u00a0in carols all day,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mary","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_3104-630x630.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_3104-630x630.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_3104-630x630.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":186756,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/sunrise-dark-faith-advent-brightness-christmas\/","url_meta":{"origin":180209,"position":1},"title":"Sunrise: through the dark faith of Advent to the brightness of Christmas","author":"Shawn Rain Chapman","date":"December 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Traveling through Advent with grief this year has led to me to soul search about what Christmas is, and, in the process, to notice similarities between the journey of Advent into Christmas and the stages of the soul's progression into the heart of God. \u00a0According to Carmelite spirituality, \u00a0the soul\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/faith-blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"photo by Renee Bork","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12016594_10205918857824426_849206572_n-550x413.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12016594_10205918857824426_849206572_n-550x413.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12016594_10205918857824426_849206572_n-550x413.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":179829,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/the-prayers-1st-sunday-of-advent\/","url_meta":{"origin":180209,"position":2},"title":"The Prayers – 1st Sunday of Advent","author":"William Rooney","date":"November 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the guiding principles of the early church in formulating her doctrine was the phrase, lex orandi lex credenti, which translated means \u201cthe law of prayer [is] the law of believing.\u201d In that time, the Church Fathers, plagued as they were with heresies no less than we are and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ACNM"","block_context":{"text":"ACNM","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Icon of the Last Judgement","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Icon-of-the-Last-Judgement.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":327920,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/objectivity-healthy-self-love-advent-reflection-catholic-guilt\/","url_meta":{"origin":180209,"position":3},"title":"Objectivity & Healthy Self-love: An Advent reflection on “Catholic Guilt”","author":"Rachel","date":"November 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Catholic guilt\" came up recently in a conversation about psychology and religion. 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Can there be something unhealthy about guilt?\u00a0I think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\"Child Praying at Mother's Knee\" By Edouard Fr\u00e8re (1819\u20131886) , used from the WikiCommons","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/520px-Pierre-E%CC%81douard_Fre%CC%80re_-_Child_Praying_at_Mothers_Knee_-_Walters_371330.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":577215,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/spiritual-nourishment-for-the-last-week-of-advent\/","url_meta":{"origin":180209,"position":4},"title":"Spiritual Nourishment for the Last Week of Advent","author":"Rachel","date":"December 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"On the last leg of this Advent journey, I'd like to share with you two little bits of spiritual nourishment that I have found really helpful along the way. 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