As a small child I was way too shy to approach Santa and tell him what I wanted for Christmas. Besides, I always understood that the Santas that appeared in December were Santa’s Helpers and not the real Santa. The real Santa had better be on the job at the North Pole supervising the elves and not sitting on a throne at Goldsmith’s Department Store in downtown Memphis. December was when Santa needed to be checking his list carefully and getting everything lined up for delivery. Besides, I had already discovered that I could talk to Santa privately just like I talked to God. I picked out stuff in the big Sears Catalog with my dad, told Santa what I wanted privately, and then at least some of the things I wanted always showed up on Christmas morning. Santa’s elves could duplicate anything that Sears could sell.

Hope is an easy commodity to sell to children during the weeks before Christmas, but what does hope mean for adults? Where does our hope come from—if it does not come from the North Pole? Well, it is important to remember that hope is not the same as optimism. Hope does not mean focusing on the bright side of things or thinking positive thoughts or imaging positive outcomes. When we hope in the religious sense, we are free to take a good hard look at reality. We can even be pessimistic about outcomes, as long as we add, “With God, all things are possible.” So, the only essential for practicing the virtue of hope is the presence of God. All things are possible with God.

During Advent, I often think about Joachm and Anne, the parents of Mary. Perhaps that sounds odd, since there is no scriptural record of anything they said or did. Their names do not appear in our four Gospel, but in The Gospel of James, a document written in the middle of the second century and not considered authentic scripture. That is not to say that nothing in The Gospel of James is authentic. This Gospel tells many stories about the childhood of Mary and Jesus. On November 21, we celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of Mary, which is based on a story in The Gospel of James. The story says that Mary was presented at the temple by her parents at the age of three and lived at the Temple for a while, guided in the faith by the priests. Historians tell us that such a thing would never have happened, but the kernel of the story is what is important. Joachim and Anne were people of faith and hope. They were part of a long line of anonymous believers who kept hope alive—through wars and slavery, through times of famine and prosperity, through times of corruption and oppression. A trues Son of David would come. He would come not because the evidence supported it or because we were worthy of it, but because God had made a promise to his people.

Although Mary was graced in a special way by God, the fact that her life was turned so completely toward God and doing the will of God surely reflected the influence of faithful and hope-filled believers like Joachim and Anne. Although she did not fully understand what was being asked of her, Mary was ready and willing to say, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say.” A handmaid was a servant found only in wealthy households. Her duty was to pay attention to the hand signals of her mistress and respond right away. This was the intensity of Mary’s focus on doing the will of God. Joachim and Anne were Jesus’ grandparents, and in today’s world, it is often grandparents who play a major role in inspiring the next generation to be persons of faith and hope.

On this First weekend of Advent, we light the first candle on our Advent wreath. A lit candle often becomes a sign of hope. During the days of apartheid in South Africa, Christians used to light candles and place them in their windows as a sign of hope that some day injustice would end. The government recognized this as a political statement and made it illegal to place a lit candle in a window. In the end, it was the lit candles, rather than violence and revolution that brought apartheid to an end.

So, as we begin this Season of Advent and light our first candle, it is easy enough to tick off our worries and concerns. We all have personal and family concerns. We have an ever-widening war in the Middle East and in Ukraine. Crime, violence, and inflation are very much with us. Climate change is impacting us all. We wonder about the future of the Church or about the future of faith itself. Yet, this season of Advent is still a season of hope. Hope guided Mary as she waited for her son to be born and as she watched him die on a cross. With God all things are possible.

                                                                 Fr Joe