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Two alumnae authors are helping the faithful prepare their hearts to welcome the King of Kings at Christmas, reflecting on various aspects of the season of Advent. 

Writing for the National Catholic Register, Sophia (Mason ’09) Feingold the fittingness of the transition from the Feast of Christ the King to Advent. The readings at the end of the liturgical year summarize what the cycle of seasons and celebrations, beginning with Advent, bring to life: Christ’s sojourn into the world to guide sinners back to the Father. Mrs. Feingold dismisses some heterodox interpretations of that sojourn before offering a sounder, more spiritually apt image of her own. 

“I like to imagine a reverse sort of St. Christopher here, where Jesus carries me on his back — heaven knows we all need that from time to time,” she writes. “Since there are a lot of us in His mystical body, perhaps we are all huddled up together in His cloak, which is knotted over His shoulder like the little handkerchief packs that boys running away from (or back to) home are supposed to carry. Or are we not rather like toys in the sack on the back of a certain saint supposed at this time of year to travel about between heaven and earth?”

Meanwhile, at Catholic Exchange, Teresa (Lawlor ’08) Hodgins her fellow Catholics to see past the consumerism that has come to characterize Christmas in the West. “The gift-giving of Christmas, originally meant to imitate the generosity of the three Kings, has been hijacked, along with our hearts, to make the Christmas season more frantic than any other.” 

But, she acknowledges, taking refuge in possessions is a natural tendency for our restless hearts. “We look to that darkest month of the year and are tempted to try to bring the light through more stuff,” she writes. “And yet, the wisdom of the Church instead points us to a short, penitential season of Advent. Tradition reminds us to prepare our hearts because the Light is coming. The Light of Nations is coming into the darkness.”