O Come O Come Emmanuel

By Casey Sprehe

The holiday season is crazy. Crazy loud, crazy fast paced, crazy packed with events to attend.
Ironic that the Lord asks us at this time to slow down, be quiet and wait patiently on Him.
The Catholic faith is filled with traditions and ways to enter into the Advent season with more intentionality.

It can often be challenging to bring faith traditions into family life. Truthfully, it’s challenging when we compare our family to the family next door. It’s challenging when we see a Pinterest pin with a beautiful Jesse tree made with real wood and hand-painted ornaments and realize that’s just not in the cards for us this year.
Don’t compare someone’s exterior actions to your internal feelings. Comparison is the thief of joy.
What’s important is what God judges, the disposition of the heart.

My heart wants my kids to know the importance of Advent. My reality dictates that I can’t go to weekly Mass + do a daily Jesse Tree + a nightly Advent Wreath + a daily Advent Calendar.
So, we choose one of them to do with intention and commitment. Nightly after dinner, we light the Advent wreath and sing “O Come ,O Come Emmanuel.” There is something about darkness + fire + music that brings us into the Sacred almost instantly.

We as a family literally only do this one thing daily-not with much fanfare and it’s done in 5 minutes. But in the quietness and stillness of the moment, it reminds us to wait on Him. O Come, O Come Emmanuel!