Advent—a season of joyful anticipation!  There is a penitential aspect to this season.  After all, we are getting ready for one of our great feasts, so being shriven (having our sins forgiven as in confession) is a good way to get ready.

Look at the children, as we enter these last days before Christmas.  They are excited!  They almost cannot wait.  We try to comfort them in that anticipation.  We busy ourselves and distract them with putting up lights and Christmas decorations and trees!
Can we learn from our children?  Can we try to tap some of that energy, joy, and hope?  Can we see that we are called to anticipate Christ’s second coming with those same feelings?  Yes, it will mean leaving this world behind, but heaven—life with God in the Kingdom—will be wondrous beyond our wildest dreams.

So, as children are imagining Christmas morning, let us imagine the wondrous joys of heaven and let our imaginations loose!  We are Christians, and we should, even though we acknowledge Satan and his abode, proclaim and have faith in the love of our God, in Heaven and Salvation—COME LORD JESUS!