Christianity is not a matter of telling other people what to do.Christianity is a matter of telling people what God has done for them in Christ.
Everything else—every command, every moral teaching, every “ought”—flows from that.
Christ came, lived our life, died our death, rose again as the first fruits of our own resurrection, ascended into heaven in His full humanity, and brought that humanity to the right hand of the Father. He sent His Holy Spirit upon us so that we might be filled with His life and go out to preach and teach as He commanded.
The implications of that truth are the source of the Church’s entire moral vision.
Because I believe that my life has been conquered, redeemed, and set apart, I behave differently than when I thought I was “just” a child of the world. I want my life to be thoroughly conformed to the person of Christ, because I believe He is alive. What we say at funerals is true: it is not at the moment of bodily death that a Christian truly dies, but at baptism—when we die and rise with Christ as a new creation. From that moment on, no torment can touch us in the same way if we choose to remain conformed to Him.
So again:
Christianity is not about telling other people what to do;it is about telling other people what God has done for them in Christ.
Many of us grew up—explicitly or implicitly—with the idea that Christianity was mostly about behavior. The unspoken (or very spoken) mantra was:
Behave → Believe → Belong
If you behave the way we want you to behave, that’s what we really want.If you happen to believe what we believe, even better.And if you can manage both, then you can belong.
But look at Jesus. Look at the way He encounters people.
Take the woman at the well. He doesn’t interrogate her first. He doesn’t hand her a checklist. He simply sits with her. He enters into communion with her. And from that communion, her life is changed—not the other way around.
The Gospel pattern is:
Belong → Believe → Behave
Why would I want to live differently if I have no idea what this community believes or why it matters? And why would I care what this community believes if I don’t experience myself as seen, welcomed, or valued in the first place?
Belonging comes first: You are wanted here. You matter here. You are not an outsider.Then comes belief: What is it that this God—and this people—actually proclaim?Finally comes behavior: In light of who God is and who I now know myself to be, how could I live?
Again, Christianity is not primarily about telling people what to do, but about proclaiming what God has done—and is doing—for them in Christ.
During Lent, we spend a lot of time talking about the three pillars: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But Advent often remains vague. We hear, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” and we nod. Then we get home and think, Okay… but how?
So we do what we know how to do: we bake pies, buy yams, decorate the fireplace, light a candle. And those things are fine—good, even—but 15 minutes later, we’re not necessarily any more spiritually awake than we were before.
So I’d like to propose three Advent pillars—three ways of living that flow from what God has done for us in Christ. Think of John the Baptist’s image: the tree that has been cut down looks dead, but there is a new shoot sprouting from that stump. That stump is your heart, your life, your world.
Where there was death, a new life can grow. Not in the same old way—but from the very place where sin, doubt, despair, or difficulty once reigned. That is what the living Lord can do.
Here are three Advent pillars:
* Docility to the Holy Spirit
* Endurance fed by hope
* Courageous honesty
1. Docility to the Holy Spirit
In Isaiah, the Messiah is described as filled with the Spirit of the Lord—wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, and fear of the Lord. But before any of those gifts take root, there is a foundational posture: docility.
We often equate “docile” with weak, passive, or easily pushed around. But docility, in the Christian sense, is not weakness. It is availability.
To be docile to the Holy Spirit is to live in such a way that God can actually get to you. Many of us are not truly available to God. We have our own plans, our own timelines, our own picture of how life “should” go. When something interferes—plans change, someone drives too slowly, someone disagrees with us—we become impatient, anxious, or angry.
Often, it’s because we’re not open to the possibility that God might be trying to lead us into a world larger than the one we have planned.
Everything about Jesus’ life as Messiah flows from His availability to the Father.
Two practical suggestions for docility:
* A Morning Surrender PrayerStart your day with a simple act of surrender.Write on your mirror, your dashboard, or your phone lock screen:
* Jesus, King of love, I am confident in you.
* Lord, let me see as you see, judge as you judge, love as you love.
Repeat it throughout the day. These little acts of surrender slowly anchor you and make you more available.
* One Daily Act of ObedienceI don’t mean “clean your room because your mom said so” (though you should probably do that too).I’m talking about obedience to the small nudges of the Holy Spirit.
* Someone suddenly comes to mind: send them a text—“I’m thinking of you; how are you?”
* You feel a strange urge to go to the store now instead of later—and you “coincidentally” run into someone who needed to see you.
* You feel a quiet pull to step away from your phone and sit in silence for five minutes.
These seem small, even silly. What does God care about zebra cakes and whether I get the last box or not? Yet He loves to meet us in small things. Living attentively to these promptings builds up spiritual sensitivity. Over time, it becomes less difficult to hear His voice and notice His presence.
2. Endurance: A Hope That Refuses to Die
In the second reading today, St. Paul speaks of “endurance” and “encouragement.” Advent is not about vague wishing: “LEt’S pRePaRe tHe WaY” in a way that never actually touches our real life. It is about staying the course with confidence because God’s promises are trustworthy.
Think of endurance not as perfectionism—I must be strong, flawless, successful—but as a hope that refuses to die.
And that hope is paired with encouragement. The word itself points us inward: cor (heart) and -agere (to make, to render). To encourage is to send someone into their own heart, to help them find the strength that is already there.
If you are baptized, the virtues are already in you like a pilot light: prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, faith, hope, and love. Sometimes that flame is a blazing fire; sometimes it’s barely a flicker. But it’s there.
Endurance means trusting that, with God’s grace, that pilot light will not be extinguished—no matter what the day holds, from serious family crises down to minor tragedies like watching someone else take the last box of zebra cakes.
Two practical suggestions for endurance:
* Choose an Advent Line to Live WithPick a verse and let it accompany you all week:
* “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”
* “He will be called Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”
* Or the classic Advent cry: “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Write it down. Put it on your dashboard, your mirror, your phone background. Whisper it under your breath. Shout it in the car. Let it become the rhythm of your hope.
* A Micro-Fast from PessimismFor one week, choose your favorite form of negativity—complaining, doom-scrolling, catastrophizing, cynicism, that “everything is terrible” tone—and fast from it.
Your therapist might call this cognitive restructuring.
When I was in college seminary, the rector once told me: “Every time you’re about to make a sarcastic comment, challenge yourself to remain completely silent.” I was so quiet that people started asking if I was okay. It was eye-opening. I hadn’t realized how much of what I was putting into the world—yes, clever and funny—was not actually helpful.
Christian hope and endurance are like a muscle. They grow when we exercise them, and atrophy when we give in to the habits that weaken them.
3. Courageous Honesty
John the Baptist does not mince words:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Repentance begins with honesty—the courage to see ourselves clearly and according to the truth.
Truth is simply what corresponds to reality. It doesn’t automatically mean “good” or “bad.” It means: this is what is. To live in truth is not to shame ourselves or spiral into self-loathing; it is to stand where God stands. He is found in the truth, even when it’s messy.
As Advent deepens, ask yourself:
* What is weighing me down?
* What am I clinging to that makes me less free, less available for Christ?
* What is one thing I’m holding onto that makes me less available to Him?
Write it down. Put it where you’ll see it. Share it with someone who sees you regularly and can hold you accountable—and ask them to do the same. We cannot do this alone.
And then: go to confession.
Not because God is keeping score, but because He wants you free.
Don’t settle for the quick “tidy up” confession if it’s been years. And certainly don’t say, “I don’t have anything to confess.” If you’ve ever said that to a priest, he was probably thinking, Then why are you in here? The sacrament is not for the sinless; it’s for the saved-who-are-still-being-healed.
The first thing you could confess is the thing you least want to say. Not because God wants to humiliate you, but because once you say it, it’s over. It’s out. It’s done.
And I can almost guarantee this:If you’ve ever confessed some deeply embarrassing, heavy sin, you have not heard from the other side of the screen, “Oh MY! Wow. Hold on, let me write this down. Let me turn on the recorder…”
You’ve never heard that. You won’t hear that. You will not be judged in that way.
Show up with sincerity, clarity, and courage. Reveal yourself to the Lord, not so that you can be shamed, but so that He can reveal Himself to you and show you that already, within that place you thought was dead forever, a small green shoot is beginning to grow.
The Heart of It All
Docility to the Holy Spirit.Endurance formed by hope.Courageous honesty.
These are not self-help techniques or moral improvement projects. They are simply the ways a heart begins to live once it has heard—and believed—what God has done for it in Christ.
Christianity is not a matter of telling other people what to do,but of telling other people what God has done—and is doing—for them in Christ.
That is where the moral life begins. That is where Advent begins. And that is where real freedom begins too.
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