Love is Liturgy

Advent, Week One

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This essay is Part I in our 2023 Advent Series.

The Changing Tide 

Every Wednesday at 1:45 a.m., my alarm went off. I threw a winter coat over my pajamas and slid my feet into a pair of felt clogs before braving the darkness and bitter cold of the winter night to drive to the nearest Catholic church. I huddled close to the massive wooden door, clumsily punched in the door code with my mittened fingers, and proceeded inside. It was normally around 85 degrees in that chapel, and the gold and candlelight on the small altar flooded the room with warmth--with Presence. I would pray until 3 a.m., when the next drowsy adorer arrived for their shift. There is something sacred about the middle of the night, something which lends itself to contemplation,¹ and I had discovered there a form of prayer—Eucharistic Adoration—that made me feel like I was about as close to God as one can get in this life.

Three years later, it was 2020, and I had resumed a pattern of n…