Dear Friend, 

Reflection by Msgr. Gerard H. McCarren, S.T.D.

“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God” (Isaiah 43:1). With these and similar words, the quintessential Advent prophet invites us to receive the hospitality of the Holy Trinity.

Advent is short this year, its fourth week being only a single day. Compounding the urgency of Advent’s joyful anticipation, this brevity bids us be prepared for what our God is doing in our midst. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) reminds us (see Liturgy of the Hours, Wednesday of the First Week of Advent, Office of Readings), in these last times we await the Lord Jesus’ glorious coming at the end of time and we remember with joy his coming in the flesh among us through Mary’s yes and his appearance in Bethlehem, but we also acknowledge a third coming of the Lord in our midst. “In case someone should think that what we say about this middle coming is sheer invention,” preached this “Mellifluous Doctor” of the Church, “listen to what our Lord himself says: ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him.’…Where is God’s word to be kept?  Obviously in the heart.” Saint Bernard continues: “Let it enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life…. If you keep the word of God in this way, it will also keep you.  The Son with the Father will come to you.”

Extending hospitality to the Lord Jesus ends in his offering us a share in the communion he enjoys with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Our small gesture of hospitality, made possible by his grace in the first place, brings us into the hospitality of God. During Advent we hear the voices of the prophets, especially Isaiah, who will lead us through the first two weeks of the Advent readings, even determining the choice of the Gospel readings (as happens only in this time of the Liturgical Year), who invite us to open our hearts to God who has opened his heart to us. Their clarion call finds singular expression in John the Baptist, who ushers us from the Old Testament to the New, where we encounter Joseph and Mary, who give us the most beautiful model of hospitality. Indeed, Mary finds her grace-filled hospitality blessed beyond measure in her Immaculate Conception, a gift to her of God’s own hospitality, and we have the privilege of celebrating this grace on our seminary’s patronal feast day and letting it echo as we honor her as Our Lady of Guadalupe shortly thereafter. With this image of the Blessed Mother with child, we move toward the celebration of Christmas, when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

And so we ask: How might Jesus be beckoning us this Advent to a greater understanding and appreciation of God's desire to come to us, dwell within us, and be welcomed into our homes and hearts?  How might this year's Advent be a journey of an ever-deepening hospitality of the heart?

We trust that our small gestures of hospitality to the Lord Jesus, in prayer and in kindness to our neighbor, will be met with the very hospitality of the Holy Trinity, inviting us into that divine hospitality, the communion which is the fulfillment of our deepest desires. Advent longing brings us deep, deep, deep into the loving heart of our God, our home.

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Reverend Monsignor Gerard H. McCarren, S.T.D., Rector/Dean of Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology.  He earned a B.A. from Yale University with majors in History and in Philosophy (Psychology track), an M.Div. from Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology, and an S.T.L. and an S.T.D. in Systematic Theology from The Catholic University of America. He was named Spiritual Director for the Seminary effective July 1, 2004.  In Spring 2005, Monsignor McCarren was named Chaplain to His Holiness. From 2007 to 2016 he served as a Vatican appointee to the Joint Commission for Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Methodist Council.  Monsignor McCarren served as president of the Federation of Seminary Spiritual Directors (United States and Canada) from 2018-2022.