We could all use more light this Advent—and here’s where you can find it

Aleteia’s own Elizabeth Scalia is busy this season doing more than shopping, planning, cooking and decorating; she’s also taking time each day to do what she does best: writing and reflecting on the world around her.

Which means the world around us.

Which means a place that these days seems too often darker and colder than usual.

Despite the chilling headlines and ominous reports, Elizabeth is offering us Advent Light: daily reflections to help guide us through the darkening days of December and keep us focused on the Ultimate Light that is to come.

Consider this a meditative Advent calendar, where each window is cracked open to reveal a brief message of hope, grounded in scripture and imbued with grace.

This is how her series begins:

Jesus will return again, with the heavens opened and the mountains quaking before him. In the Mass we say we await that day with “joyful hope,” but for most of us – at least those of us who are cognizant of all the ways we have fallen short – we quake like the mountains at the thought, expecting justice, but hoping for one dollop more of mercy. But for now, we have this Coming of Jesus placed before us at the start of a new liturgical year. As Advent begins we are given a chance to make straight our paths, to return from the wilderness into which we have wandered within the distractions of our day-to-day, and rediscover God, anew, and in the most approachable of all possible forms. Come Lord Jesus! In your birth we await the heaven-crackling good news that God comes to us, so that we might stop our wanderings and make our way back to him. Back to the source of light. Back to the promise of mercy. Back to the love that created us and is always waiting for our return. Come, Emmanuel, and bring us back!

I don’t know about you, but I needed that.

Check back every day at this link for a new reflection—and one more flickering flame of light to help guide us through Advent. You’ll be glad you did.