You don't have to do all this stuff for Advent.

Why we aren't doing an Advent podcast this year

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Last year for Advent, the Catholic Feminist did an Advent podcast. I was feeling the podcast-itch again and it fulfilled that scratch so well. I got to have four conversations with Catholic women who inspire me on peace, hope, joy, and love. I hope if you didn’t get a chance to listen to it last year, you get to this year!

When I was brainstorming what we were going to do for Advent this year, however, I was at a loss. E-retreat? Another podcast season? An e-book? Daily poems? Some kind of interview series? A devotional read-along?

It all felt not-quite-right, like when you put shoes on and they’re one size too small. It could work, but it isn’t really clicking, and when I thought about why, I realized what I really wanted to say. The thing I really wanted to tell you this season.

Which is that you don’t need to do all this stuff for Advent.

When I launched the 2021 podcast, I almost felt like it got lost in a sea of Advent promotions. The liturgical calendar blends so sweetly with a business launch, doesn’t it? Here’s my podcast. Here’s my Zoom call. Here’s my daily journal. All worthwhile things; all made with love. But it seemed like every single person I followed was pitching their Advent plan, and I felt kind of gross in a business-y way. How do I stand out among the *competition*?

As if Advent spirituality were something I had to sell. Something that needed a tagline and a logo. Something that needed my branding.

It begins earlier and earlier and earlier. I’m still sipping a pumpkin spice latte—in Birkenstocks. And yet my timeline and Instagram ads are already filled with 8,000 digital roundtable book call zoom sessions, insisting that their event is the most Advent-y of them all.

Every single speaker has an Advent devotional. Every single podcast has an Advent series. Every single artist has an Advent line. On and on and on.

I am not against Advent stuff. I love Advent. That’s why I did end up including a list of resources at the bottom of this essay. But you don’t need to do all this stuff.

You can do a daily devotional—but you don’t need to.

You don’t need to attend an e-retreat*—but you don’t need to.

You can listen to a special Advent podcast series—but you don’t need to.

I think of Mary, nine months pregnant, groaning with the weight of a human body pressing on her bladder.

If you’ve given birth, you’re probably familiar with the concept of nesting: folding the onesies, scrubbing the mold from the shower corners, making massive batches of pasta to freeze. Perhaps Advent should be similar: a nesting of faith. Not going to every event under the sun but instead preparing our inner hearts, cleaning out the dusty cobwebs of our souls and making space for something new.

When Mary trudged her weary body to Bethlehem, setting up to labor in a literal barn, she didn’t have mistletoe hanging over the door or a perfectly framed St. Nicholas print on the wall. She prepared to meet Emmanuel. And that’s what we need to be worried about doing.

For me, this year, a nesting of faith doesn’t mean doing a thousand and one Advent things. It actually means like radically simplifying, and in that way, I feel more Advent-y than ever. Me in the shadows, eyes seeking the light. My cup of coffee and the Book of Isaiah. A simplification, the way you get the urge to clean out the junk drawer when you hit week 36.

All of these Advent practices can individually be wonderful—truly, I bear no ill will toward my fellow Catholic artists. Like, hello, I literally did a podcast last year and opened this essay with encouraging you to listen to it. (And you know I’m all about artists/writers being adequately paid for their services and talents.) But I don’t want you to think you have to spend money, or be on a certain influencer’s program to have an Advent that orients your heart towards the Lord. Advent shouldn’t be a task that makes you feel like you have your Catholicism together, it should be a season of spirit and waiting.

“It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope. Advent, this powerful liturgical season that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence.” - Pope Benedict 16

We all love the internet for the ways its connected us; and yet—we are more disconnected than ever. I’m not sure Twitter is doing its job if you feel super close to a stranger across the country but completely alone in your own community.

It’s not about the Instagramable journal, the hours spent on Zoom in some kind of digital Advent night, the endless to-do list of any mother attempting liturgical living. And we know all of this, we do, until we’re scrolling and scrolling and every-single-person has some kind of substack series or book club or roundtable, and then we forget.

Or at least, I do. I feel like since I’m a Catholic creator, I absolutely must provide something special for Advent. When really, I think the best thing for your soul (and mine) is probably to just open up a bible in front of the Eucharist and pray more. I don’t want to half-ass some series or project because I feel like I need to make my writing more liturgically appropriate, the same way I don’t think you should act like Advent is one massive to-do list instead of a season ordered around peace, quiet, and waiting.

God doesn’t need me to create anything, and he doesn’t need you to consume anything. He can send his grace, his very self, in a dirty barn to a disheveled, tired Jewish couple, and he doesn’t need anything from us in return.

When you actually look at the lyrics of everyone’s favorite Advent song, “O Come O Come Emmanuel”, you could weep.

O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

The incarnation occurs to literally end death, to disperse the gloomy clouds of our days and remind us of a hope worth having.

The first Christmas was holy and sacred. It did not have a Spotify playlist. I find myself wanting to simplify my faith; to tear down the tasks and rituals until it is pure as a fresh breath of snow. Going all in might mean doing a whole lot less, and by doing so, making it mean a whole lot more.

All of that being said, and meant: I am going to share my Advent plan. I think it’s good to prayerfully consider how you’re going to embrace the liturgical season, and I do gather inspiration from people I enjoy following online.

I’m going to be reading this book by myself each morning, and this book with my kids every evening while we light the Advent wreath and sing O Come O Come Emmanuel.

I’m going to re-listen to this podcast series, which breaks down the story of the first Christmas in an entertaining and informative way.

I signed up to buy groceries for the local domestic violence shelter one week, and one day I’m planning to take my kids to Target to buy a cart-load of necessities for our local food pantry.

I’m going to celebrate the feasts of St. Nicholas and St. Lucia with my family.

I’m going to raise money for the Laura Vicuna Foundation to end child sexual exploitation.

I’m going to listen to a lot of Joel Clarkson, Josh Garrels, Audrey Assad, and Sarah Kroger.

…and that’s it! That’s my Advent plan. This list is not meant to make you feel like Oh, wow, Claire’s doing so much or Oh, wow, I need to pray for Claire’s soul because she clearly sucks at liturgical living. It’s not a blueprint or a map or a guide. It’s just mine. I’d love to hear yours in the comments, or if there’s a resource that has particularly blessed you.

*A side note on e-retreats and e-summits and e-conferences, as they rise in popularity: There is something better about being in person. I said it! I did. I said it, and I can feel some of your defenses rising; I can feel the eyes of the internet glaring at me and calling me ableist and anti-poor and all of those other lovely names it loves to toss around. Digital retreats are absolutely wonderful for people who can not afford or physically manage to make it to an in-person retreat; I used to have one and I think it bore good fruit. They have a time and place. But I think being in person is better. I think hugging each other and handing each other lukewarm coffee and asking about each other’s kids is so good for us; I think dealing with an overly air-conditioned church basement and the annoying parking situation molds our souls. And I don’t want to coordinate digital events/summits/retreats because I actually want you to shut your computer and go to your local parish’s Candlelight Advent night, or the choral concert, or do a book club with your friends complete with Swiss Miss and Michael Buble crooning in the background. If you have an e-retreat blessing you this year, wonderful. If you’ve never looked at what the IRL parishes in your area offer, though, maybe just do a quick Google for that as well. xo

On My Nightstand 

• All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft by Geraldine DeRuiter: This was just…okay. Travel memoirs are one of my favorite genres, but her humor wasn’t quite my style. Quick, easy read, though!

• The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton by Thomas Merton: Still on my Merton kick. Loving starting every morning with a poem by a monk I so admire.

• “Midlife and Iconography and Repetitive Art”: I’m a big Lore Wilbert fan, and someone just shared this beautiful essay from her in my TL. “This year I need to see the gaunt curves of a Savior’s hipbone in the artist’s depiction. I need the downcast eyes of a Son who feels rejected by his Father (and brave enough to say it in front of those he led). I need the variety of skin colors on Christ followers through the ages, reminding me that this white evangelical situation we’re in today isn’t even a smidgen of the cloud of witnesses we’ll be among someday. I need the women being the first to see and believe and preach the gospel of the risen Christ. And, as always, I need the vividness of Thomas’s hands reaching toward the holes in Christ’s body.”

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