Advent 2022 Week 4

Reflection Questions

Is the Lord inviting me to explore the parts of my heart that are longing for a savior? Does he desire to show me the ways that he is longing to come and rescue me? (Would love your thoughts here, Mae. I’m not sure if this is necessary… what do you think? I don’t want people to just start digging up stuff if the Lord isn’t leading them there.)

What promises has God made to me? Do I believe that God will fulfill His promise?  Do I find myself in a time of waiting for the Lord to fulfill His promises? Take some time to look back and ask the Lord to remind you of the ways in which has fulfilled his promises to you in the past.

What has been my experience of hope, especially when it comes to promises of the Lord? Do I resonate with one of the two extremes that Rebecca shared? Have I had experiences of hoping in an outcome vs hoping in a person? If hope has been hard, ask the Lord for the grace to be grow in true, authentic hope in Him.

Can I think of a time in my life when my expectations have caused me to “miss” the reality of what was in front of me? Are there expectations that I hold in my heart when it comes to God? Am I willing to offer those to Him and give Him permission to surprise me this Advent?

Consider Mary’s story and all that must have been a surprise to her. The Annunciation, the news of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, and the unexpected circumstances that surrounded Jesus’s birth. Consider her feelings, her emotions. Consider how she must have had to cling to God and the hope in His promise. Ask her to be with you and to show you.

Scripture & Quotes for Prayer

“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” – Jeremiah 29:11-14

“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. - Luke 1:26-38

“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” – Luke 1:45

“Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” – Romans 12:12
CCC 1817 Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful."84…


CCC 1818 The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.

CCC 1819 Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people which has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice.86 "Hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the father of many nations."87.

CCC 1820 Christian hope unfolds from the beginning of Jesus' preaching in the proclamation of the beatitudes. The beatitudes raise our hope toward heaven as the new Promised Land; they trace the path that leads through the trials that await the disciples of Jesus. But through the merits of Jesus Christ and of his Passion, God keeps us in the "hope that does not disappoint."88 Hope is the "sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf."89 Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of salvation: "Let us . . . put on the breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of salvation."90 It affords us joy even under trial: "Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation."91 Hope is expressed and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire.

CCC 1821 We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will.92 In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere "to the end"93 and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ. In hope, the Church prays for "all men to be saved."94 She longs to be united with Christ, her Bridegroom, in the glory of heaven:

Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end.95

• St. Teresa of Avila, Excl. 15:3.

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