Some of you will remember the December 2024 issue of our monthly newsletter, Heart to Heart, which was a community video poem created by responses from our Heart to Heart readers to the question: What do you carry in your heart this Advent?
Here we are, one year later, nearing the end of the first week of Advent 2025. This week’s HeartSpeak blog post invites you to ponder what you find in your Advent heart this year and to share, in the comment section below, how you respond to the question in 2025: What do you carry in your heart this Advent?
This Advent is a special one for me. I intentionally slowed my pace and have resisted filling up the calendar. As the first week progressed, my heart became increasingly aware of Mary’s presence and Joseph’s role.
She is the REED OF GOD (by Houselander) gently showing me how to allow the Word to blow through me in her company.
My prayer has centered around an Ignatian meditation on the real human aspects of Mary’s pregnancy, her conversations with Joseph, their parents’ responses, and the planning they did for the journey of beginning to live together, leaving for Bethlehem, all that astonished them there, and the unexpected migration to Egypt.
Mary is with every woman, man, and child who lives in fear, and is forced to be in constant migration, oppression, or deportation that will separate them from their families.
May Mary and Joseph be present to guide and comfort them until all the “Herods” of our times allow their own hearts to carry justice, peace, and hope! Mary, companion of the poor, pray for us.
I feel like I am carrying a certain heaviness in my heart this year. Perhaps it is the reality of world events, which I am trying to balance with the blessings and love I feel with family and friends.
This advent, and truly the Spirit has been pulling at this for months, is calling me to enter into a deeper solidarity with the poor. I am still trying to understand what this action of solidarity may look like. I have hope that the spiritual stillness of Advent may stir a way forward.
I am trying to live out the invitation to “Be still.” It is not easy because there are so many demands on our time and our energy. It is an invitation to hear God’s gentle whisper because only in silence and stillness can God be heard.
For example, I am listening to the Hallow 25 day challenge. One of the challenges is to truly keep sabbath each Sunday of Advent. Tomorrow is the 2nd Sunday of Advent, and it is almost impossible to do so tomorrow, given the way my Sunday is planned to play out. Carving out time to “be still” is indeed the invitation and the challenge. I pray I can find time this Advent to truly “be still” and listen to God’s voice and promptings as God’s grace allows.
I carry a number of different feelings this Advent season. Trying to live in the Hope of the season and in the present moment is not always easy. Our world is in such a difficult time it is hard to focus at times. I try and keep focusing on the awe and wonder of this season. May the peace and hope of Advent dwell in each of us!
I am reading The Hidden Flame – When Mother Angela Lorenzutti, OSU was 24 years old, in 1885, she took the name Sister Angela of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. In the late 1880s devotion to the Sacred Heart was a significant influence on vowed religious.
In late‑19th‑century Europe, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus surged as Catholics sought spiritual renewal amid political upheaval, secularization, and anti‑clerical movements. Rooted in the 17th‑century visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the devotion gained new momentum through the Apostleship of Prayer, which promoted consecration, First Friday communions, and reparation for societal sin. Public displays—such as Sacred Heart processions, home enthronements, and the construction of major shrines like Sacré‑Cœur in Paris—expressed both personal piety and a collective Catholic identity responding to modern pressures. Mother Angela must have been moved as a young novice, in heart, soul and spirit by the devotions she experienced to the sacred Heart to have taken that name.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (17th–19th centuries) and the Divine Mercy revelations to St. Faustina in the 20th century are deeply interconnected. Both center on the Heart of Jesus as the fountain of merciful love, expressed differently for their historical moments. There are only two church approved apparitions of Jesus: The Sacred Heart and the Divine Mercy. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French Sister of the Visitation, received 40 revelations of the heart of Jesus between 1673 and 1675, including 4 major apparitions. Today I completed my 5th First Friday Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, thanks to the invitation of the Unrsulines of the Roman Union. So, the Sacred heart is on my and in my heart this Advent season.
I carry a heart mixed with feelings.
Concerned for the way I see some places and people operating because I don’t find them being just and kind.
But then I was at event last night for Investment Advocates for Social Justice and I was so impressed by the diverse leadership team of young people running the event! Gave me so much hope.
I work in an elementary school for students with learning differences and we have been discussing our Hopes and Beliefs with this Advent season and I was so touched by their desires to help others, be kind and their belief in our faith, their families, teachers, and friends.
So I carry HOPE -Hold Onto Positive Energy and I need to remind myself to concentrate on the good I see and experience!