By Dominic V. Cassella.

But first a note from Robert Royal: Friends: Now that we've entered Advent, there's much that needs doing: prayer, fasting, almsgiving - and (sigh) Christmas shopping. New Year's resolutions are also a good idea - since we just started the Church's New Year. Personally, I take this as a time to make a firm resolution to resist just going along with the usual holiday whirl. Cheer, yes, but also a deeper time in anticipation of God entering our world in a way we could never have expected.

And inviting us not to political reform, not to economic development, not to personal improvement in the current sense. There's always time for all that later. And as today's column demonstrates, there are tremendous resources in the tradition to guide us into quite a different realm. Here at The Catholic Thing, we try to keep that as our main focus, not only during the holidays, but always, 365 days a year, because the world needs that more than anything else. And we have several new initiatives in mind for 2026, which you'll be hearing about soon. We're nearing the end of our fundraising period and still need many more of you to do your part. So please, take a moment, right now. Support The Catholic Thing.

Now for today's column...

Early in our marriage, my wife and I were determined to establish an atmosphere of faith in the home for our children. We wanted every day to be centered on Jesus Christ, the week would begin with the celebration of the Liturgy, and the year would be punctuated with the traditional feasts and fasts of the Catholic Church.

Beyond the regular and common feasts of Easter and Christmas, or the major fasts of Lent and Fridays, we decided that we would try to follow some of the lesser-known fasting seasons. One such fasting season is the period leading up to Christmas, called in the Eastern Christian tradition St. Philip's Fast.

Rather than listening to Christmas music directly after Thanksgiving, we would focus on music that is distinctly anticipatory: Advent hymns. We would abstain from meat and sweets and reserve those for Christmas Day and its season. Instead of an early Christmas season before Christmas even begins, Advent would be there to sharpen our desire for the coming of Christ.

Advent and Christmas with the Church Fathers, TAN Books' new self-guided seven-week retreat, begins with that principle in mind.

Unlike some other devotionals I have used, Advent and Christmas with the Church Fathers does not take you by the hand, day by day. Instead, it is a seven-week, theological retreat that guides readers in meditating on the mystery of the Incarnation. Every week is packed with selections from the orations, commentaries, and poetry of authors from the Greek, Latin, and Syriac traditions, as well as from Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Holy Mass. And the weeks are punctuated with various questions to meditate upon.

The book begins with the first week of Advent in the Roman calendar and concludes with Candlemas in early February. The first week of the retreat asks readers to consider the virtue of hope. By hope, we are confident in the attainment of that for which we hope. It is a gift from God to hope in eternal life and eternal joy - to not only be optimistic, but expectant of success and of the full enjoyment of God's splendor.

In fact, to begin with hope is at all times suitable while we live in this world of loss and gain. The grounding of this hope is that we, as Christians, have been made co-heirs of the Kingdom, citizens "not of this world." And as a result, we are sojourners - as foreigners in a foreign land - on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, which by Christ we have a genuine claim. If anyone is going to set out on such a journey, hope of arrival is necessary before the first step can even be taken.

To enkindle this hope, Advent and Christmas, with its selections from the Fathers and reflective questions, helps the reader pray with the best of the Church...