Advent: Learning to Wait Well

Season 1 | Episode 6

What does it mean to wait faithfully when your Advent lasts longer than four weeks? Rachel Walters explores the Church’s ancient season of waiting through the image of a rose blooming out of season—and asks what it looks like to live fully in the season you actually have, rather than the one you wish would finally arrive.

Drawing from years of infertility and the ache of December imagery centered on pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, Rachel reframes Advent as spiritual formation for anyone living with prolonged longing. Through Mary’s lifetime of saying yes, the Church’s rhythm of darkness and light, and the theology of the already and not yet, she shows how waiting can become more than passive endurance.

Rachel also offers practical ways to engage Advent honestly through candles, the O Antiphons, Scripture, lament, community, and small acts of preparation. Because Advent is not about pretending the darkness is gone. It is about learning to hold a candle inside it—trusting that waiting is not wasted time, and that God is present in the longing itself.