I will wait, and wait, and wait with the Lord. I will wait with and in the Lord, rather than violate charity. Wanting to speed up time, and make things happen now is a violation of charity. It does violence to the nature of things. But the patient person keeps a perspective that is beyond expedient. Beyond what is immediate, and sees before him or her, all what serves love. This Advent, let’s ask for the grace to serve only what promotes love.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
AR#7 – Advent Reflections with Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.
Since we are God’s creation, we have come from God and we are returning to God; God has great confidence in His own grace. He has great confidence that his love for us can change us. He knows that we can make progress and be restored to spiritual and moral health. Do you have confidence in God? Do you trust God? Always desiring to restore you, once again, to happiness and interior peace. Advent is a time to be restored. Primarily, the church is asking us to be restored through the sacramental life. Advent is a time to come back to Church; come back to the Mass; come back to the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation, where God is confidently waiting for you, knowing that you can make progress and be restored to spiritual health. And to taste, once again, His happiness that He shares with you.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
AR#6 – Advent Reflections with Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.
One of our greatest sufferings as Christians is our own impatience with ourselves. We want to be good and holy immediately. St. Francis de Sales said “Have patience with all things. But chiefly, have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage, in considering your own imperfections. But instantly set about to remedy them. Begin every day a task anew.” During Advent, lets make our new task a deeper prayer life, entrusting all our desires for goodness and holiness, to the Most Holy Trinity, who has infinite patience with us. And as we receive this amazing love from the Trinity, let us ask that our own characters be reformed, so that we might have real patience with one another.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
AR#5 – Advent Reflections with Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.
As human beings, we tend to sin. We all know this about our characters. And many times, it moves us to despair. God sees our sin, but He never loses his patience with us. And one of the reasons why God never loses His patience with His creation, is, of course, because He loves us. But also because His happiness is already fully possessed by Himself. He’s not like us when we get angry at our children, and try to move time forward; try to make things happen quickly. God is perfectly happy in Himself, and so He does no violence to time, or to people’s development. He waits. He calls. He shares His own happiness with us. And He knows in this patience that He fully possesses, that someday we will be attracted to such a powerful person, to such a peaceful person as He revealed Himself to be in Jesus. This Advent, don’t lose patience with yourself. Convert all desires to sin into Jesus’ own heart. Give it to him and He will give you a share in His own happiness.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
AR#4 – Advent Reflections with Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.
Human beings are called by God, to find their fulfillment patiently, to a life of cultivating virtue. We don’t become saints immediately; we don’t even grow in disdain of our sins immediately. For we are so attached to them, and the immediacy of pleasure that they give us, that it takes time for us to disconnect from that pleasure, and to cultivate a new love, for the only pleasure that lasts, God sharing His own happiness with us. This Advent lets ask the Lord to open our hearts more deeply so that we can receive this happiness from Him. And in so receiving it, be healed of our impatience. For what is being given, and what is coming to us, is more than we could ever imagine.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
AR#3 – Advent Reflections with Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.
As human beings, we have disordered desires. One of our greatest disordered desires is to want things now, to be impatient, and to want things through our own efforts, without waiting or cooperating with God’s will. To wait and cooperate with God’s will, is to unleash the wonderful character trait of trust. To entrust all of our desires, and all that we wish would be fulfilled into the person of Jesus Christ, whose only desire is our goodness, our happiness, and our holiness. This Advent, let’s trust that God is thinking about us all the time and moving creation in such a way that all that is good will be given to us. Let us ask him to heal our desire to want things now. And to renew within us the desire to want only holiness, to want only what God wants for us, for he knows what is best.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
AR#2 – Advent Reflections with Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.
We want everything accomplished right away. God only knows that accomplishment follows one thing after another. He knows that it takes time for us to learn what it means to be human, to be those who are loved so deeply by His most Sacred Heart, His mother, and the saints. He knows that it takes time for us to understand that His love, and the reception of His love, is the very origin of our joy. During Advent, we ask even with more fervor, to receive this love. And we ask for the grace to release this joy, especially through the intercession of the saints and the Blessed Mother.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
AR#1 – Advent Reflections with Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.
One of God’s attributes is patience. He suffers His own creation, as it comes to fulfillment in His love. The God that we worship is a God who truly loves us. And in this great love, He waits. He waits for us to respond to all that He has given us. And He doesn’t simply wait in a passive way. He keeps loving us, keeps directing His love toward our hearts to awaken them with a response. This is near the very core of what Advent is about. God-loving us so deeply, directing His love toward us, and Him sharing His life with us so that we might respond in kind. So that we might wait and receive, and then respond to His great love
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
The Liturgy of the Eucharist, Part 1 – The Way of Mystery with Deacon James Keating
Deacon James Keating explores how the Eucharist shapes moral life by transforming our conscience through divine charity. He explains that the Eucharist is the source of goodness because it is the wellspring of God’s love. By placing ourselves before this mystery, we are drawn into holiness and made capable of authentic charity. The offertory is not merely a financial gesture but a response to being filled with the Word of God—an act that symbolizes giving of self. The mingling of water and wine is a sign of our union with Christ’s divinity through humility and service, reminding us that true communion with Christ sends us toward those in need. The priest’s quiet prayer for purification before consecration reveals a deep awareness of human unworthiness and the immense grace of God’s invitation to holiness.
The shift in the Mass from prayers directed to Christ to those offered with Christ to the Father mirrors Jesus’ self-offering on the Cross and our participation in His obedience. He also reflects on the priest’s vocation as a sacramental presence of Christ—the bridge between God and His people. The priest’s role is not managerial but paternal, called to spiritual fatherhood that demands holiness, humility, and courage to teach truth even when unpopular. We shouldn’t reduce priesthood to leadership models devoid of spiritual depth: the priest must feed his people with truth rather than cultural opinions. The faithful, in turn, are called to pray fervently for their priests, that they may live their vocation with integrity and draw their communities into deeper communion with Christ.
Discerning Hearts Reflection Questions
How does recognizing the Eucharist as the “wellspring of divine charity” reshape your understanding of moral goodness?
In what ways can you make your offertory—both spiritual and material—a more authentic act of self-giving?
What does the mingling of water and wine at Mass teach you about humility and participation in Christ’s divinity?
How do you discern whether an encounter with God has truly moved you toward serving the poor and those in need?
When you witness the priest’s hand-washing ritual, how might you join interiorly in his prayer for purification?
What does the shift in prayer “through Christ to the Father” invite you to consider about obedience and dependence on God?
How can you support your parish priest in living out his vocation as a spiritual father rather than a mere leader or administrator?
What does Deacon Keating’s reflection reveal about your own attitude toward authority and obedience in the Church?
How might you respond when the truth of Church teaching challenges your comfort or cultural assumptions?
In what concrete ways can you pray for priests and help strengthen their courage to proclaim the Gospel faithfully?
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
The Paschal Mystery – The Way of Mystery with Deacon James Keating
Deacon James Keating and Kris McGregor explore how the Paschal Mystery and the Eucharistic liturgy are inseparably united. The Mass is not merely about attendance or obligation but about making oneself available to be taken into Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. True participation requires an interior openness—allowing Christ to shape our hearts and draw us into communion with both Him and others. Rather than reducing Mass to duty, fellowship, or a fleeting emotional experience, he invites listeners to see it as an intentional, interior response to the presence of God breaking into time.
Conversion is a gradual process. Everyone comes to the Eucharist at different stages of their spiritual journey, carrying joy, grief, or indifference. We need to bring our authentic state—whether delight or sorrow—before God, trusting that Christ works within those realities. Mass is both personal and communal: it reverences each individual’s encounter with Christ while drawing the community together in communion. Our identity flows from the Eucharist, where Christ gives us Himself and plants the seed of resurrection within us—a gift that sustains us through life, death, and into eternity.
Discerning Hearts Reflection Questions
How do I prepare my heart to be truly available to Christ when I go to Mass?
In what ways do I sometimes reduce the Eucharist to an obligation rather than an encounter with Christ?
Am I attentive to my interior disposition at Mass, or do I approach it on autopilot?
How open am I to letting Christ take me into His life, death, and resurrection during the liturgy?
Do I bring both my joys and sorrows honestly before God in the Eucharist?
How do I recognize and respect that others in the community may be at different points in their spiritual journey?
In what ways do I allow my emotions—or lack of them—to determine my participation at Mass?
Do I see the Mass as both a personal encounter with Christ and a communal act of worship?
How do I live out my Eucharistic identity in daily life beyond the church walls?
What steps can I take to deepen my intentional presence at the Eucharistic liturgy each week?
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
