As people look around it is fair to ask, why is our society becoming so coarse, so unhappy, so violent, so out of sync with itself?

We must not be naive or unrealistic. St. Augustine says somewhere that every generation looks back and says the good times are all behind us.

But as we face everything from economic to moral problems, some of us can still remember a time when we didn’t have to lock our doors, when kids played all over the neighborhood until dark, and please and thank you, and common courtesy were just givens.

Obviously the answer to the deepening problems that are plaguing our world, our society, our families and our consciences is not simple, and likely not just one thing. But at the time of the Christmas holidays, aren’t we right to long for something better out of the world and better for ourselves?

That sense of longing for what is really good, that desire for something better than the world we know, is actually at the heart of Advent and our preparations for Christmas.

The people of Israel were very familiar with such longing. During Advent we are presented with some of the magnificent passages from the Old Testament that remind us of God’s promise to the Jewish people of a savior to heal a world wounded by sin. The prophets kept telling the people not to settle for the current world because a day was coming when hurt, anger, frustration and sin would be left behind.

We are told that when that day comes, because of God’s healing, the wolf and the lamb will get along and children will walk with lions. On that day, Jesus told John the Baptist, through Christ’s love the blind will see, the lame will walk, lepers will be cleansed and the dead will be raised.

While it is true that only God can fulfill His promise to remake the world and our fallen consciences, it is also true that part of God’s plan is that He asks us to work with Him. We have to do our part.

We cannot simply accept the brokenness of our world with a shrug and a sigh and wait for Christ to come again. We need to enter into Advent. Now and throughout the year we need to stir up a longing for Christ and we need to prepare our souls and our lives for the moment when we will meet him.

How might we do that this Advent? The first answer is the most fundamental. We need to acknowledge that our spiritual lives will take some effort. We have to make the time and foster the resolve in our hearts.

The busyness of the world, the distractions of so many “things to do” is a great tool for the devil to draw us away from longing and hoping and truly changing. “Just too busy, you know.” But in reality we can commit to prayer and conversion.

Once we do that, we need some concrete steps.

First, how about simply carrying through on praying more? Wherever you are on the scale of prayer, kick it up a notch. If you are basically at zero, how about a sign of the cross in the morning, prayer before meals and a Hail Mary before going to bed?

If you have been lax about Sunday Mass, Jesus (and we who are there) would love to see you. If you go to Mass each Sunday, how about trying to attend during the week?

And the sacrament of confession always brings us closer to Christ.

Our desire for a better world can make us resolve to give to the poor or to our parish, and to make our gifts to each other this year not wasteful or ostentatious, but restrained and representing our love.

If there is someone from whom we have been estranged and in need of reconciliation, is this not the time to reach out?

The bottom line, then, is this: we feel the need for a better world. That better world will simply not come without the presence of Christ. We need to hope and long for him to come.

Our spiritual lives must take on the work of that hoping and longing. When they do, the world already starts to be a better place.