“Pay attention. Turn your ear. Let your heart be moved.”
That is the quiet command of the word heed.
Advent is a season of waiting, but it is not a silent season. It is filled with voices — prophets crying out in the wilderness, angels announcing impossible news, and the soft, persistent whisper of God calling the world back to himself. The question of Advent is not whether God is speaking, but whether we will heed the voice.
To heed is more than to hear. Hearing can be accidental. Heeding is intentional. It means allowing what we hear to shape what we do.
Mary heeded the angel’s word and said, “Let it be.”
Joseph heeded a dream and chose mercy instead of fear.
The shepherds heeded the heavenly song and left their fields.
The magi heeded a star and changed their route home.
None of them had a complete understanding, yet all of them had willing hearts.
In our world, noise is constant. Opinions, urgency, conflict, and distraction surround us. It is easy to hear God faintly and move on unchanged. But Advent calls us to slow down — to listen deeply enough that we are changed by what we’ve heard.
To heed is to pause before reacting.
To heed is to obey before we fully understand.
To heed is to trust that God’s voice is worth following even when it disrupts our plans.
Advent invites us to practice holy attention — to notice where God is nudging, convicting, inviting, comforting. It asks us to be people who do not just admire the light but move toward it.
This season, may we hear the call of hope.
May we heed the invitation of peace.
May we follow the whisper of love made flesh.
Because the miracle of Christmas was never just that God came close, but that people were listening enough to receive him.
Inner Altar 