As we approach the Fourth Sunday of Advent, many of us are exhausted… not from waiting for God, but from being constantly provoked. Each year, I perhaps naively imagine Advent unfolding as it should: daily, thoughtful prayer and meditation; holy hours and candlelit vespers; the slow curl of incense in quiet air; a disciplined focus on preparing my heart for Christ’s coming into the world. In my mind, it is a holy season wrapped in pristine white snow and sacred stillness.
But as you can guess, it never happens.
Instead, the world is loud. Relentlessly loud. And on this eve of the Fourth Sunday of Advent, I find myself asking the same frustrated question I ask every year: how in the heck am I supposed to pray and meditate in a world like this? The Epstein files. War in Venezuela. The Trump name added to the Kennedy Memorial Center. That’s just the warm-up act. The American political and media machine does not survive on wisdom or truth. It survives on outrage. On keeping us angry enough to stay engaged, distracted enough to stop listening, and reactive enough to confuse noise with action.
For me, as the final candle of Advent draws near, that constant stimulation becomes unbearable. Waiting starts to hurt because anger feels easier. It gives us something to do with our hands while our hearts grow restless.
And here is the uncomfortable truth I have to face, especially now: when that outrage steals my attention, it steals it away from God. No matter how justified my concern may be, no matter how serious the issue, it is still my responsibility, and ours, to be disciplined enough to ensure these things take no more of our time and attention than they deserve.
Saint Augustine once warned, “Disordered loves are the cause of all our misery.” Not loving the wrong things, but loving good things in the wrong proportion. Even justice, even truth, even righteous concern can become distorted when they consume the space where God alone should dwell.
On this eve of the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Church gently turns our gaze toward Mary.
She was waiting in a world far more violent, unstable, and unjust than ours. An occupied people. An unpredictable empire. Real danger, not theoretical outrage. Her own body marked her as vulnerable, exposed, and subject to public judgment. And yet, the Gospel tells us that Mary “pondered all these things in her heart.”
She did not ignore the reality around her, but neither did she allow it to pull her away from what God was doing within her. She remained focused. Attentive. Oriented toward the promise growing quietly inside her.
Mary shows us that waiting well is not about escaping the noise of the world, but about refusing to let that noise dictate the posture of our souls.
Reflection
As we approach the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we are reminded that the season does not ask us to be uninformed, indifferent, or disengaged. It asks us to be ordered. To discern what truly deserves our attention, and what merely demands it.
The world trains us to believe that constant outrage is a form of faithfulness. That if we are not angry, we are not paying attention. Mary offers us a different way. She was not numb. She was not naïve. She was not insulated from danger. But she protected the space where God was at work within her.
Waiting becomes painful when the noise governs our inner life. Waiting becomes holy when we choose, again and again, to remain oriented toward God’s quiet, faithful presence.
A Call to Faithful Action
As we move into the Fourth Sunday of Advent, choose one small but intentional act of discipline.
Limit your exposure to outrage-driven media.
Silence notifications that fragment your attention.
Create a daily pocket of quiet, even five minutes, where God has your full focus.
Ask yourself honestly:
What is claiming my emotional energy right now?
And is it helping me become more loving, more patient, more faithful?
Faithful waiting is not passive. It is a quiet form of resistance in a world that profits from your distraction.
A Prayer on the Eve of the Fourth Sunday of Advent
Loving God,
You chose to enter the world quietly,
not through spectacle or outrage,
but through trust, patience, and love.
As we draw near to the birth of your Son,
teach us the discipline of holy focus.
When anger feels easier than waiting,
anchor us again in your presence.
Like Mary, help us to ponder rather than panic,
to listen rather than react,
to trust that you are already at work,
even when the waiting hurts.
Clear our hearts of the noise that distracts,
and make room once more for your coming.
Amen.