 So, so I have a question for you. So I've heard a number of times that Advent can be called a little lint So, how do we tie repentance into this season and how does this this play out in our walk in penance? Yeah, that's so there's this kind of back and forth about like a disagreement argument among priests and theologians about the penitential character of Advent It's a purple season a violet season and violet is the color of penance historically like way back before back in the Like seven four hundreds five hundred six hundreds into the eight hundreds there's this back and forth about what this season is and It was at different times called a little lent or st. Martin's Lent or or the season of st. Phillips lent all these different ways that kind of measured from a feast day to Christmas the type of fasting and Then later abstinence that should actually take place in this season So early in the tradition starting really with the tail into the patristic period there is Normatively a fasting and abstinence in in Advent and it is a mini lent mini because it's shorter slightly less Directly penitential, but you can't prepare the way without repentance When when it's in the Gospels John the Baptist in Advent calls out prepare the way repent and believe the kingdom of God is here There's this inevitability about a penitential spirit that comes up as we recognize not that we're just Wretched and should hate ourselves But rather the one who's approaching is so worthy of the the best offering that I could possibly make That everything in me that looks unlike Christ is repulsive to me Like I dread the stuff in me that makes me not look like Jesus And so I fast to detach myself from creatures and the ways that I've come to love things That are not God more than I love God So all through the tradition. This is a thematic that comes up in advent Less formally in recent years, but the penitential character remains. It's in the in the scriptures. It's also in the prayers It's in the way that we're invited to preparation. So You don't necessarily in practical terms sometimes people do give something up for advent the way they do for lent We used to do that actually growing up. I did and I still periodically do but at very least There needs to be a question on your heart of like how how am I disciplining my passions and my attachments and testing those attachments? Because it's always in view the no to like the enjoyment of created delights as always a yes to their creator Like when I detach from the things that I love that I don't necessarily need I'm able to bind myself more fully to the one who gave them to me and created them in the first place So that'll come up throughout the book at least three four times I speak about repentance and conversion and fasting because though it may not be like the the central topic of advent I don't think you can do advent well Without confronting your own sinfulness because in the end what you're trying to do is adore the lord well And that requires a pure sight the pure of heart shall see god and wherever we carry impurity We have to repent confess and then stand fast in his grace. Amen. Amen