Hello friends and welcome back to Speaking with Joy.

You are listening to my special Advent series where I am reprising some old episodes that I've recorded in the previous years

surrounding the themes of Advent. Last week's episode explored the history of Advent, how it's been celebrated in the church, how it prepares us to receive Christ into

our hearts and to prepare for his second coming. And this week's episode focuses on Mary,

the mother of Jesus. I remember this being one of my favorite episodes to research and prepare

for, because Mary to me is such a picture of what it is to be a Christian. She's the first one

who opens her heart and her life to God, who literally bears Christ within her and gives him

to the rest of the world, which is this beautiful picture of what it is for all of us to be a Christian.

Married to me is the perfect example of Christian womanhood, but more generally

Christianity as a whole, that we, in our power to say yes to God, can become Christ bearers

and who give his love to the rest of the world. So I hope you'll enjoy this week's episode

meditating on Mary and Her Example.

Of course, if you want to find the show notes and links to the artworks that I talk about,

I'll be posting those on joyclarkson.com, so you can always check out that if you want to know a bit more.

And one other quick note.

I often get people asking me about Advent resources for devotions or

kind of things you could use in this season to think and feel through the preparation for Christmas.

And I have two main suggestions for that. One is a wonderful little book by Malcolm Gite called

Waiting on the Word. It is a poem a day for

Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. And Malcolm Gite, who is, I think I might have talked a bit about this

in the last podcast, but he is a priest, a poet, and a professor. And he put together this beautiful

book that has a poem for every day of Advent, along with

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