Why you should spend your Advent with Mary

Have you ever considered spending your Advent with the Virgin Mary? Advent, above all the other seasons of the liturgical year, presents the perfect opportunity to draw closer to Mary.

One simple way to do this is to imagine the last few weeks of Mary’s pregnancy and to accompany her, pondering what she might have been thinking during this time in her life.

This exercise also illustrates perfectly a central spiritual truth: the closer we get to Mary, the closer we are to Jesus.

Mary holds Jesus within her very womb and so the more time we spend with her, the more time we are with Jesus.

In the book Meditations for Advent the author brings this all to mind and further encourages the reader to spend their Advent with Mary, as it will make Christmas morning even more spiritually enriching.

Let us go to Mary. Let us devote our Advent to Mary. Let us consecrate every thought, word, and action to Mary during this holy season; and then, on the blessed Christmas morning, she will herself place her Infant in our arms; nay, rather, she will lay Him down to rest in our hearts; and He is so obedient to His sweet mother, that He will never stir from the heart wherein she places Him, unless she comes to take Him away. Surely we will not oblige her to do so? Advent should be a time of special devotion to Mary. Jesus again lies mystically in her womb. Again she pleads unweariedly for her people, as she pleaded in that blessed Advent when He took flesh of her flesh, and bone of her bone. Oh, let us kneel before her now as we would have knelt before her then, and implore her to intercede for us with Jesus, to obtain for us that He may indeed be our light, and that we may never be of the number of those who prefer darkness.

As we prepare for Christmas, let us consider the ways we can develop our relationship with our spiritual mother, drawing closer to her, so that we may draw even closer to Jesus.

Read more:
A prayer to Mary, Mother of Advent from St. John Paul II