Lord Jesus, Advent has begun again.
The Church tells us to wait.
To watch.
To prepare.
To hope.
Usually those words sound beautiful.
But when we have been waiting for a child for months or years, they can feel almost painfully familiar.
We already know how to wait.
We have waited through cycles.
Waited for appointments.
Waited for test results.
Waited for treatments.
Waited for pregnancy tests.
Waited for paperwork.
Waited for approvals.
Waited for our adoption profile to be seen.
Waited for the telephone to ring.
Waited while other people announced pregnancies, gave birth, celebrated baptisms, and watched their children grow.
And now the Church says:
Wait for the Lord.
Jesus, teach us the difference between waiting alone and waiting with You.
Advent is filled with the image of Mary carrying You secretly beneath her heart.
For weeks, the world could not see what was happening within her.
But You were there.
Growing quietly.
Hidden.
Loved.
Lord, that image can be beautiful and difficult for a woman experiencing infertility.
She may look at Mary and think:
I want to carry a child too.
She may want the morning sickness.
The growing belly.
The first flutter.
The kicks.
The heartbeat.
Even the discomfort.
She may want the strange, astonishing knowledge that another human life is growing inside her.
Mary, do not let that longing make us afraid to come near you.
Draw us closer.
You are not a mother who looks upon empty arms with judgment.
Hold the woman who longs to conceive.
Sit beside her during the two-week wait.
Stay with her when the pregnancy test is negative.
Stay with her at the doctor’s office.
Stay with her when another month begins and hope has to start all over again.
And St. Joseph, walk beside the man who waits too.
The man who watches the woman he loves suffer and cannot fix it.
The man who wants to become a father.
The man who wonders whether there will ever be another little person in the house to protect.
Teach him how to wait faithfully without believing he must carry everything silently.
Lord, Advent is preparation.
Sometimes we have prepared too.
Perhaps there is already a room.
A crib.
Books.
A rocking chair.
A blanket folded in a drawer.
Maybe there are names saved on a phone.
Maybe there is an adoption profile filled with photographs showing a child the life we hope to share.
Maybe grandparents have quietly begun collecting little things.
Preparation can be an act of hope.
But preparation can also become painful when the expected person does not arrive.
Jesus, enter those prepared spaces.
Sit with us in the empty nursery.
Bless the crib no baby has slept in.
Bless the rocking chair where no midnight feeding has happened.
Bless the books waiting to be read aloud.
Bless the little clothes bought in hope.
Bless the adoption profile.
Bless the phone that has remained silent.
Do not let these things become accusations.
Let them remain, as much as possible, signs of love waiting to be given.
Lord, there is something especially difficult about Advent because we know exactly when Christmas will come.
We can count the candles.
Four Sundays.
Then Christmas.
But infertility has no Advent calendar.
Adoption has no guaranteed due date.
There may be no final square we can circle and say:
On this day, the waiting ends.
That uncertainty exhausts us.
So instead of giving us enough grace for the entire unknown future, give us grace for today.
One Advent day.
One appointment.
One phone call.
One pregnancy test.
One piece of paperwork.
One family gathering.
One Mass.
One evening when the house feels too quiet.
One morning when hope returns unexpectedly.
Daily bread.
Daily grace.
Daily surrender.
Lord, Advent also reminds us that Israel waited a very long time for the Messiah.
But we do not want to misuse that story.
You have not promised every couple a biological child.
You have not promised every adoption applicant a placement.
Faith does not give us a secret timetable.
So protect us from turning Advent into a formula:
If we pray enough, wait well enough, or trust hard enough, You must give us what we want.
That is not love.
That is not trust.
Instead teach us to say:
We do not know what You will do, Lord. But we know we can bring You what we desire.
And we desire a child.
So we ask.
Boldly.
Repeatedly.
Without embarrassment.
Jesus, please give us a baby.
If healing is needed, heal.
If conception is possible, let life begin.
Let there be a hidden little child growing where today there is only longing.
Let there be a moment when we look at a test and cannot believe our eyes.
Let there be a heartbeat.
Let there be the quiet Advent of pregnancy.
Let there be a birth.
If it is Your will, Lord, let there someday be a child in our arms.
And if adoption is our road, guide us through its particular Advent.
Somewhere there may be a woman whose life is changing in ways she never expected.
Protect her.
Give her support.
Give the child’s father courage and responsibility.
Let no one pressure them into a decision because another family desperately wants a child.
If they can safely parent and desire to do so, help them.
If adoption is freely chosen, surround everyone involved with wisdom and compassion.
And if a child’s path eventually leads to our home, prepare us to receive that child not as the answer to an order we placed with heaven, but as a person with a history, dignity, relationships, and story that began before us.
Lord, there may also be couples entering Advent after miscarriage or the death of a child.
The image of Mary pregnant with Jesus may remind them of the pregnancy they lost.
The image of the Christ Child may remind them of the baby they should be holding.
Be gentle with them.
Let Advent contain room for mourning.
The Church’s hope is large enough to hold tears.
And Jesus, protect us during Christmas preparations.
Pregnancy announcements may be tucked inside holiday cards.
Children may perform in school programs.
Families may ask questions.
Traditions may highlight exactly what we are missing.
When it becomes too much, give us freedom to simplify.
We do not have to attend everything.
We do not have to explain everything.
We do not have to smile every second to prove we trust God.
But keep us from withdrawing completely from life.
There is beauty here too.
Candles.
Music.
Confession.
Mass.
Generosity.
Family.
Quiet evenings.
The scent of Christmas trees.
The prayers of the Church.
The ancient cry:
Come, Lord Jesus.
Let that become our prayer.
Come into our infertility.
Come into our adoption wait.
Come into our marriage.
Come into our disappointment.
Come into the doctor’s office.
Come into the nursery.
Come into the silence after another negative test.
Come into the moment we hear someone else’s good news.
Come into the fear that perhaps our own news will never come.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, teach us the waiting that happens before the Blessed Sacrament.
You spent hour after hour simply remaining with Jesus.
Intercede for us when we become impatient with silence.
Help us bring our unanswered prayer into the Holy Hour and remain there long enough to remember that prayer is not only asking God for something.
Prayer is also being with Someone.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, you appeared carrying Jesus beneath your heart.
Cover those longing to conceive.
Protect unborn children.
Protect mothers in difficult circumstances.
Protect families waiting to adopt.
St. Joseph, guardian of the Redeemer, guard our home.
Mary, Mother of Jesus, teach us your fiat.
But help us understand that saying “Let it be done to me according to Your word” does not mean pretending we have no desires.
You had questions.
You pondered.
You waited.
Teach us to surrender without becoming numb.
Lord, when we light the first Advent candle, receive our hope.
When we light the second, receive our longing.
When we light the third and the Church tells us to rejoice, receive whatever mixture of joy and sorrow we actually have.
When we light the fourth, receive the prayer we may almost be afraid to say again:
Maybe soon.
And when Christmas finally comes, if our arms are still empty, let us approach the manger anyway.
Let us kneel.
Let us look at the Holy Family.
And let us remember that before we ever asked You for a child, God gave us His Child.
Jesus, You are not merely a symbol of our hoped-for parenthood.
You are our Savior.
We do not want our desire for one of Your gifts to become greater than our desire for You.
But neither do we believe You ask us to stop wanting the good gift of a child.
So we bring both desires together.
Jesus, we want You.
And:
Jesus, we still want a child.
Receive both.
And while we wait, make this Advent fruitful in ways we may not see.
Make us gentler.
More prayerful.
More attentive to suffering.
More generous.
More faithful to one another.
More willing to perform the little hidden duties of love that formed the Holy Family’s life at Nazareth.
Let this be The JMJ Way:
Not waiting until our circumstances become perfect to begin becoming holy.
But offering the dishes.
The work.
The appointments.
The tears.
The paperwork.
The meals.
The marriage.
The disappointments.
The laughter.
The ordinary routines.
Even every heartbeat.
All for the glory of God, the good of souls, and love of the Holy Family.
And when we cannot consciously offer anything at all, let the very beating of our hearts pray:
Jesus. Mary. Joseph.
Jesus, we do not know how many Advents remain before our answer becomes clear.
We do not know whether the child we hope for will come through conception, adoption, or whether our lives will ultimately take a road we did not choose.
But we know who enters every Advent.
You do.
So come.
Come into this home.
Come into this marriage.
Come into these empty arms.
Come into this aching hope.
And if someday a little child joins us in lighting the Advent candles, help us whisper into that child’s ear:
We waited for you.
We prayed for you.
And while we waited, Jesus was waiting with us.
Until then:
Come, Lord Jesus.
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Holy Family! Help us to be a holy family and pray for us!
Amen.