practicing pilgrimage at home and abroad
With Advent nearly upon us and Christmas festivities around us in full swing, Jenn Giles Kemper of Sacred Ordinary Days shares with us how we can infuse spirituality and intention into this season and the seasons to come through following the Liturgical Year.
Be sure to listen all the way to the end—we’re giving away a new Sacred Ordinary Days Liturgical Day Planner to a lucky winner!
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534 days ago I found out that I was pregnant, and while we miscarried at six weeks, it feels like I’ve been in a liminal space ever since—body, mind, and soul.
During our first month of trying, I was so grateful to finally be in this season that the entire process seemed exciting. I began haphazardly tracking my cycle using the fertility awareness method, taking my temperature each day and monitoring cervical mucus to discover my fertile days. Once I knew I had ovulated I bought a box of pregnancy tests—First Response, early result, because I wanted to know the outcome as soon as possible. When the first day I could take the test rolled around, I woke early and took it in the bathroom, my hands shaking at the gravity of it all. The results were negative, and while disappointing, I found comfort in knowing that this was only our first cycle of trying to conceive—we were just getting started.
In my latest monthly newsletter to subscribers, sent on the first day of Advent (Missed it? Sign up here), I shared reflections on the season and an invitation for us all in the days ahead:
Pause. Prepare. Keep Vigil. Wait.
Today I want to share with you my favorite resources and practices that align with these invitations and themes of Advent so that, as fellow pilgrims, we might journey together through this season of mystery, longing, and great anticipation. (It seems tailor-made for the Seeker of the Sacred, doesn’t it?)
After last week’s introductory episode, we’re ready to dig in. This week we’re starting right where we are with the season of Advent—the first season of the liturgical year—and are sharing favorite themes and practices as we embrace the invitations of the current liturgical season and prepare for Christmas, the season to come.
Listen/download below or through iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and catch up on past episodes here. And if you like what you hear, would you mind sharing it on social media and leaving a review? It helps spread the word! Here’s how to leave a review on iTunes.
Today marks the first day of Advent and a new cycle of the liturgical year in the Church. Since I’ve just released my Sacred Seasons liturgical wall calendar (take a peek at the Advent page above), I thought this would be a great opportunity to share with you an excerpt from the calendar on the season of Advent. Blessings to you as you enter this season of waiting and longing, keeping vigil as hope draws near.
The last leaves are falling from autumn’s colorful trees as the days grow colder and the nights grow longer, readying the earth and its creatures for a season of stillness and hibernation. This growing darkness pulls us inside our homes as well as inside ourselves, inviting us to examine our places of darkness and longing and to wait with faithfulness, keeping vigil as we hold out hope for the light.
This is where the Church calendar begins—not with the certainty and fulfillment sung by the angels at Christmas time, but rather with the strain that such deep yearning brings. Like Mary pregnant with the Christ child, we start the year not with the joy and relief that comes with birth but in the womb—the mysterious place in which hope is conceived and new life is formed.