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In Motion - Not just physically, but spiritually as well.
Certain football rules allow for a specific player on the team to be in motion just prior to the ball being put into play. We have many other uses for the expression “in motion” especially when we wish to convey the opposite of “at rest,” or “immobile.” Many of us think of ourselves and most others as being in motion during most of our waking hours. Some of us have discovered that we even moved after we fell asleep because we found ourselves in a different position once we awoke.
The Pre-Christmas praying season, “Advent,” which begins this year on Sunday December 30, is vastly different from the pre-Christmas advertising and shopping season which began whenever commercial enterprises started their “Christmas” sales or whenever people started putting up lights and decorations in their homes or businesses. For those who enjoy the season of Advent, many customs and practices are put in motion right from the first day of the season. Scripture readings in worship services and in prayer books change on this day to correspond to Advent, and so too do the themes of music and preaching as well as visual arts and communal activities.
The season of Advent is arranged precisely to move our minds and hearts to reflect and wonder at all the prophecies and faith-inciting events that led up to and accompanied the birth of Jesus, and to discover for ourselves how humanly God loves us in becoming one of us. Whatever we set in motion is, of course, according to our initiatives or willingness to act accordingly. However, God is present and active in and through all that we do, and the sole initiator of much more, including the consolations and inspirations which occur in us when we focus on the deep mystery of God becoming one of us in the person of Jesus.
Many Churches and homes include Advent wreaths, with their four candles corresponding to the four Sundays of Advent. The color of the season is some shade of purple, which psychologically is the color of longing and expectation. Although Christmas music is often heard wherever we go, and perhaps in our homes as well, Churches feature Advent music that encourages reflection on both the long years of prophetic sayings about a coming promised Messiah and the shorter time of an expectant mother, Mary, and the human and divine interactions that lead up to the birth of Jesus that is celebrated at the Christ Mass on December 25.
Welcome to Advent, the season for believers when so much that is meaningful and beautiful is set in motion towards Christmas Day.
Last Updated 11/29/2025