Hope: A Reflection on the First Week of Advent

By Camilla MacKenzie, director of Adult Discipleship

Traditionally, each week of Advent has a theme associated with it. The first week, we look to the virtue of hope. One of my favorite songs for Advent is “Night of Silence,” usually sung with the more popular “Silent Night.” For me, the lyrics capture the spirit of our waiting at Advent. In this time of waiting, the lyrics say the “fire of hope is our only warmth.” 
This fire of hope may be blazing or simply warm embers.

All of us are called to carry this fire of hope even in times when it seems everything else is darkness, during times of struggle, suffering, and uncertain future. Hope, in the way we mean it as a virtue, is not just optimism or positive thinking. Rather it is in the confident expectation that God’s promises of blessing are true and will come to be in our life. 

During Advent, we rest in this hope that the darkness that we experience now ends with “a dawn so embracing.” That dawn is the fulfillment of the promises of God to His people in the birth of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.