Penitential Preparation

We just closed the liturgical year by putting Christ first and foremost as our King. However, long before the Advent season started, we Filipinos already began the festive mood last September. Commercial activity heightens as we approach Christmas. Christmas songs and decors everywhere, coupled with parties and reunions more and more dominate the atmosphere.

The Catholic Church emphasizes Advent as a joyful anticipation of the birth of the Messiah and the second coming of Christ. The penitential aspect of this preparation invites us to be aware that in the course of our temporal existence, Christ also comes to us innumerable times as if trying to tell us to conform to His will, and in the process, we begin to resemble Him. We should be generous enough in our conversations and resolutions with him so as to be able to receive His instructions regarding the regimen we have to follow to effect change necessary for us to rise above our human nature; to dominate our not-so-edifying tendencies and inclinations which sometimes are exacerbated by our imagination and memory. Aside from prayer, acts of love will truly help our penitential exercises necessary for us to achieve self-dominion. When we fail, the rallying cry is, “Let us begin again!”

Let us go to the Blessed Mother, for she knows to teach us the beauty of reciprocity in loving our God to further our self-renewal this season of Advent.