First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2025

On that day, the Lord will bind up the wounds of His People.
Isaiah 30:26

Today, we will begin the sacred season of Advent. It is a time of miracles, and we do not want to miss them because of our Yuletide distractions. Let me tell you a story about someone who longs for such miracles.

---

Christine is a beautiful woman, inside and out. She is as vital as fresh air or summer sun. She is successful, strong, sincere and faith-filled. But her heart is a fragile hidden glass, ready to break at any moment, because her beloved son is a heroine addict. Johnny lives in a tidal darkness beyond the shore of her sustaining light. Like spilled ink, that darkness regularly invades her joy and conspires to steal her hope.

Spiritual darkness holds a profound contradiction. It is the place where we may be deeply lost but even more deeply found. It is an interior tunnel through which every person walks at least once in her life, the deep chasm from which Isaiah pointed to the distant mountaintop.

---

During the thrilling season of Advent, we step out into the land of promises and prophets. The language of hope unfurls in a galaxy across the heavens, calling us out of darkness toward an Infinite and Incarnate Light. In this first week’s glorious readings, the prophet Isaiah points to our salvation, star by prophetic star:
• There is a Day coming, he tells us, and on that Day, the Lord will bind up the wounds of his people.
• In a very little while, he tells us, Lebanon will be changed. A shoot shall sprout from the tree we had thought to be withered.
• On this very mountain, he tells us, we will behold our God.

For all of us who, like Christine, carry human sorrow in the shadowed valleys of our spirits, there is healing on the near horizon. The Daystar of Jesus Christ is about to dawn through the darkness. God is about to put on the very humanness that is our burden and transform it into glory. Let us begin, with an eager faith, to enter the divine mystery being sung among the stars.

---

Music: Darkness and Light – Harald Hauser

For Your Reflection:

• What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
• Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
• What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

---

Suggested Scripture: Readings for the First Sunday of Advent