On the first Sunday of the new liturgical year, the Church does something that is a little unexpected. She doesn’t ease us into the new year gently. She doesn’t take us to a cozy scene from Bethlehem or give us a comforting word about new beginnings. Instead, the year opens with what feels like a spiritual punch to the gut. Before we take a single step into this new year, the Church is essentially giving us a wake up call. She is telling us: “Stay awake.”

It’s a bold way to start, something that gets our attention. But the Church is also very wise in doing that because She knows how easily her children can drift into spiritual autopilot; She knows how easily we can fall into the trap of simply going through the motions. And we do that not necessarily out of stubbornness, but more so out of routine. Reality is that our life just gets full from time to time. The days pile up. And slowly, almost without noticing, we start praying less, reflecting on our lives less, loving a little less intentionally. Our faith doesn’t disappear; it just kind of fades into the background.

So, the first question that the Church is asking us to consider at the start of this liturgical year is a simple one, but it also pierces right to the heart: “Am I awake to God right now?”

The Gospel gives us a picture of ordinary people doing ordinary things – eating, drinking, working, planning the next thing. They aren’t doing anything wrong. They’re living totally normal lives; they’re doing exactly what we all do every day. But underneath those ordinary moments, something sacred was unfolding and they’re not seeing it. Not because they were bad, but because they were too absorbed with other things. They were distracted by completing daily tasks. They grew comfortable and got a little complacent.

That’s an example of being spiritual asleep. It’s not always something that happens dramatically. It usually comes on subtly. The Enemy often uses our routines and our day-to-day responsibilities to dull the spiritual senses. He makes us think that we are so busy that we don’t have time to spend with the Lord. He makes small things seem urgent and then tells us that those things are more important than the eternal. He fills our hearts and minds with so much extra noise that it makes the voice of God harder to hear.

Advent is the season that gently turns our eyes and our hearts back toward God. It’s the spiritual equivalent of a friend or a loved one placing a hand on our shoulder and saying, “Pay attention. Something is happening here. Don’t miss it.”

In our First Reading today, Isaiah’s vision of people streaming toward the mountain of the Lord gives us the right posture for this new year; it gives us the proper disposition we should embrace for this season. A mountain is not climbed accidentally. We make the climb because something inside of us has awakened, there’s a desire to accomplish the feat. It’s a recognition that we want more because we know there’s something worth seeing at the summit. Advent stirs that desire within us once again. It brings to life the longing for depth in our relationship with the Lord, the longing for holiness.

St. Paul picks up that same theme in our Second Reading when he urges us to wake from our sleep. He is calling us to come out of our slump, to emerge from the spiritual fog. He wants us to rediscover the beauty of our faith and to stir into flame that fire of faith in our hearts. When Paul says to wake up, he is inviting us to remember who we are and what we’re made for.

The beauty of beginning a new liturgical year is that we aren’t asked to overhaul our entire spiritual lives overnight. That’s not something the Lord would ask us to do. We’re simply being asked to become more attentive to what is going on in our hearts. We’re being asked to notice where God is already showing up and where we are failing to see how He’s working within us and within those around us.

The question then becomes: how do we build that spiritual awareness? How do we return to that depth of relationship with the Lord and start hearing His voice more clearly? It’s not by adding more noise or more pressure; it’s by choosing to be deliberate in the things that we do to wake the heart up. Maybe it’s taking a quiet moment at the start of each day and saying, “Lord, help me notice You today.” Maybe it’s paying attention to the people who are hardest for us to love and letting that become a place where grace has room to work. Maybe it’s spending a few moments with Scripture or in silence with the Lord. It could also mean reflecting on our day, calling to mind 3 gifts the Lord has given us and thank Him for them.

These small habits become the way the soul stays awake. We don’t need to wait until Christmas to welcome Jesus in our hearts in a new way. He wants to arrive now in the middle of our ordinary, daily lives. When we practice that kind of spiritual awareness, Christmas becomes less of a destination and more of a deepening of a relationship already developing. And if we stay attentive, we’ll recognize the presence of Jesus long before we reach the manger.

Photo: Shine Your Light on Me, by JIUNN-YIH LAU. Used under Unsplash license.