In a world wired for speed, Advent arrives like a whisper.
We live in a season of alerts, headlines, and endless noise—both external and internal. Our minds are crowded with tasks, worries, and expectations. Silence feels awkward. Stillness feels unproductive. Yet Advent calls us toward a different way: quietness.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, “In quietness and trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). This is a strange promise. Strength, we assume, comes from action, control, and noise. But God locates strength in what we often avoid: stillness, waiting, listening.
The story of Christmas begins in obscurity and calm. A young woman pondering impossible news. A long, silent journey to Bethlehem. A child born not amid fanfare but in the hush of a stable night. Shepherds keeping watch in quiet fields before the sky itself breaks open with glory.
God chose silence before the song.
Advent invites us to practice that holy quietness—not as escape, but as attention. Quietness is not emptiness; it is space. Space for God’s voice to surface beneath our racing thoughts. Space for longing to tell the truth. Space for hope to take root.
To be quiet in Advent is not to do nothing. It is to wait on purpose. To turn down the volume of the world so we can hear the Word made flesh drawing near.
This season, may we resist the tyranny of noise.
May we rediscover the courage to be still.
And in the quietness, may we find Emmanuel—God with us.
Inner Altar 