There is so much waiting as we enter this season of Advent. Waiting for students to turn in work so it can be graded and we can know their status, waiting to give and grade finals, waiting for a well-deserved Christmas break, students waiting for grades, students lining up at classrooms to get the help that, maybe, they should have sought a little earlier, and all the other anticipation that this time of year brings. But what are we truly waiting for? Jeremiah told the people that the days were coming that God would fulfill his promises. As Christians, we understand the "just shoot" for David as a foreshadowing of Jesus as messiah. But what will this waiting for Jesus look like for us and for our students?

We do not fully know. As Henri Nouwen wrote, "Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God's promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom. The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future. The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands." De La Salle reminded us, in remembering how he became committed to schools, "God did this in an imperceptible way and over a long period of time, so that one commitment lead to another in a way that I did not foresee in the beginning." How God's promises will be manifested in each of our own individual lives, and in those of our students, will be different. But all of us came to San Miguel with hope: hope that we could make a difference in the lives of students; students with the hope that their lives would be changed. All we can know about this process of hope and change is that it calls us to live daily in God's holy presence, a presence that will, as we wait, bring the justice that is living in right relationship with God and each other. May our waiting in God's presence help us to see this justice in our time.

Live, Jesus, in our hearts!