Each year the Church gives us the season of Advent; a time to journey to Bethlehem again. But what to we expect when we arrive at Bethlehem? Three very poor people — a husband, a wife, and a new born son — staying in a manger, basically a barn. What do we expect from these three poor people? The French poet and writer Paul Claudel answers, nothing but “three poor people who love one another” and who “will change the face of the earth.”

The Church demonstrates great wisdom in setting aside as holy a month of expectation the liturgical season of Advent. For, like the Holy Family, we are also poor. Yet we are poor in the very way that they were rich, and rich in the way that they were poor. We are rich in terms of material possessions. Few of us in our parish worry much about where our next meal is coming from. We have comfortable homes to lay our heads, warm clothes against the elements, most of us have regular work to not only provide for our material needs but to also give some meaning in our lives. There in Bethlehem, Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus were materially poor. They had no comfortable home to lay their heads, but had to settle for a cave used by animals as a barn. I am sure it was damp and dark, not very pleasant. They were in a way immigrants, having just arrived from their home town of Nazareth so that they could register for the census. Even though Bethlehem was the “hometown” of Joseph since he was of the house of David in the tribe of Judah, he probably did not know anyone in Bethlehem. As a tradesman, a carpenter, Joseph did not have a steady income, especially in this new town, where he would have to get new customers, competing with the other carpenters. So the Holy Family did not know where their next meal would be coming from – if at all.

But the Holy Family was rich in a manner that too many of us are poor – they were rich in their faith in God. Despite all the material uncertainties in their lives, Joseph and Mary trusted God to take care of them. When they received those extraordinary messages from God, telling them that Mary would become the mother of Jesus, the Son of God, they did not know how everything would work out, but they knew that everything would work out. They just need to put all their faith in God. So often we are so impoverished in this manner. We encounter an obstacle, a challenge, a difficulty, and we set God aside so that we can come up with a solution to our problem.

We sorely need Advent as an annual occasion to listen to the prophet Isaiah, to marvel at the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the birth of St. John the Baptist, to enter more deeply into the meaning of the two great songs of faith that frame the Church’s daily prayer, the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79) and the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), and to join St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin in silent adoration of the incarnate Son of God.