Advent Is Coming!

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Our Blessed Mother is an ideal companion as we live through the days of Advent, which this year begins Sunday, December 2. For four weeks we wait for her Son, but Mary waited for nine months! Imagine what that time must have been like for her. She had never been a mother before, and hers was an unplanned pregnancy. More startling was the fact that her child would be the Son of God. The day of her birth announcement, Mary must have been stunned and maybe wondered if she hadn't imagined or dreamed the conversation with the angel. She waited. But then her body told her without a doubt that she was pregnant. Perhaps she worried about the impact this news would have on her parents, the food for gossip it would provide for neighbors, and, most heartbreaking, how her beloved Joseph would react. In addition, she also knew full well that the punishment for pregnancy outside of marriage was death by stoning. She waited for Joseph's decision: would he divorce her or not? When an angel explained the situation to Joseph and he married her, Mary must have been greatly relieved. Then she only had to wait for the miracle birth. Click to continue

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