By Father Jerry E. Hardy

Christmas is a simple thing of love, a simple birth of life.

It's a reflection of a mirror image of our Father's love for us, a holy seeing of how much we matter in his eyes.

It is in itself, contrary to commercialized efforts to make it something "good for the economy," a small and quiet thing, a simple birth.

It is a 24-hour day that ends, like all the others, at midnight.

It can come and go all too quickly. And given the relentless build up of months of sales and shopping, its 24-hour passage can leave us in a low place with the blahs.

But there is a way around that and it isn't alka-seltzer.

It is another simple thing, another small and quiet thing.

It is Advent, a 4-week-long gift-wrapping of the present that is that day of simple birth.

Advent, like Christmas, is a reflection, a reflecting.

A reflection time. A reflecting time. Time to get a better sense of ourselves, our deepest values and how our lives reflect them.

Time to come to a deeper realization of the true gift in Christmas, the gift of a Father so loving that he links himself to a people and their history for thousands of years until he tires of the distance and decides to come closer.

He sends a Son so faithfully reflecting the Father that he is called "Emmanuel". "God is now with us."

It is so simple: Jesus born as one of us (living as one with us) Jesus, real and original to the core of life authentic to the point of death.

He is God-Man and Man-God: both, fully.

He is the one for whom the Father finally recognizes himself completely ("At last," He said, breathing a sigh of satisfaction, "someone made fully in my image and likeness"). Jesus is a great relief for His Father.

The truth is, Christmas is Jesus as he comes to bring a new way of living and Advent is us as we reflect on how we reflect His way of living in ours. It doesn't matter that we may not be doing such a good job at it.

Listen to our Father, "You are so prized, so honored, so dearly loved to me. I've tried to tell you in so many ways, even carving your image on the palms of my hands.

And now, here comes my Son, my Love, the Light of My Life to light up yours.

Don't worry about being worthy because my love for you lasts -- no matter what.

Accept it and then it will empower you for richer life, my love for you will make you worthy."

Think about that.

How could we ever absorb all that in one day?

We couldn't.

That's why there's an Advent: four weeks to absorb the fullness of the simple birth that is Christmas, so that when it comes we are wrapped in a readiness that won't be over and done December 26^th that won't let our hearts' hopes be discarded like a dried-out Christmas tree.