Singles: Here's How to Make the Most of Advent This Year

The time of Advent can be easily mistaken for the Christmas season.

The advertisements are out in force. Shopping has to be done. Parties become a part of the calendar. It can be easy to forget that, for Christians anyway, Advent is really a mini-Lent. It’s meant to be a time of penitential preparation. A time of learning how to wait. For single people, that struggle can be particularly trying at this time of year. 

It seems as though every couple the single person runs into is happy as can be. We’re regularly told that the holidays are “about family”, in a way that seems to emphasize marital bliss and relationship happiness. This point is driven by home by the movie marathons on the Hallmark TV channel where good, down-to-earth people finally win their long-sought quest for love by triumphing over the wealthy big-city executive. 

None of this serves to help the cause of penitential preparation.

And for a single person who longs to be married and have a family of their own, it certainly does nothing to aid the cause of patience. But patient is exactly what we must be. 

True works of God always meet opposition and are marked by suffering. If God wants to accomplish something, sooner or later He will do so in spite of the difficulties. Your part, in the meantime, is to arm yourself with great patience.
--Father Michael Sopocko to St. Faustina

St. Faustina’s confessor knew that God usually plays the long game—at least “long” as we impatient and restless human beings living in an age of instant digital gratification define it. The language Father Sopocko uses with St. Faustina is striking. He doesn’t tell her to “be patient.” He tells her to “arm yourself” with patience. It’s the language of warfare, and for good reason. 

All of our human instincts rush toward wanting things right away, particularly in an area like romance, with its direct connection to sexual temptation. A simple admonition to be patient, like a parent telling a child to wait in line at the grocery store, isn’t going to cut it. There has to be a sustained battle plan. 

Treat Advent for what it is.

I understand it’s not possible for a lot of people to avoid the parties that are part of the run-up to Christmas. It’s not charitable to tell your best friend you can’t come to their party because you’re trying to do penance. But we can at least take steps in our spiritual life to remember that Advent is supposed to be more akin to Lent than to Christmas. 

Pick something that you would like to give up or a spiritual practice that you want to undertake. Are you in the habit of always watching television at a certain time? Maybe commit to reading a book instead. When you drive to work, do you have a favorite radio station that you default to? Try listening to a podcast about spiritual growth instead. The advantage of the digital age is that there’s no shortage of quality content for us to consume on a moment’s notice. 

For me, the penance I most often need to do is to give up ice cream. The tell is when I instinctively have it immediately after dinner, even when I’m not entirely ready for it. It’s a sign that this is becoming habitual and I am no longer enjoying it in a purposeful way. Whatever habit you have that meets this description is something that is feeding impatience. 

Pray.

It’s the advice every Catholic gets over and over again. The need to pray. The reason we always get this advice is that it works. The Rosary works particularly well. So does the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the Chaplet of St. Michael, and any number of devotions that are in the overflowing chest that is the Church’s treasury of graces. Fighting a spiritual battle presumes a spiritual enemy. That enemy is stronger than we are, but the forces of Heaven are stronger still. 

Call on them. And call on your guardian angel throughout the day. They are waiting to act on our behalf, but will always wait until we ask for their help. 

Read.

The cultural climate will always work against Christ-centered living, regardless of the subject matter or the era. It’s what Our Lord referred to when He warned that the world would despise his disciples. But even allowing that, I don’t think it’s too much to say that this particular era on this particular subject are uniquely challenging. The Hallmark movies I referred to above are just one part of a culture that forms our minds against the idea of patience in romance. And those are actually pretty wholesome. The rest of the culture feeds both impatience and outright lust. 

That means our brains need to be re-tuned, so to speak. The culture we live in is what it is. Reading good spiritual books will reframe our minds so we can let the temptations of the predominant culture pass by. 

Good choices certainly start with Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Diary of Divine Mercy is another fine choice. So is The Imitation of Christ, The Story of a Soul, Interior Castle, the Dialogues of Catherine of Siena, or the Confessions of St. Augustine. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Reading these books can be a grind. But don’t be discouraged. In fact, take heart if you find yourself having to grind through just a page or two a day. If the reading is “dry”, so to speak, it means it’s teaching you patience. It’s giving you the ability to wait on good things. And that’s what Advent is all about.