November 25, 2009

Let’s do Advent

Advent wreath paryer: week 1

By Bob Zyskowski

The Catholic Spirit

This Advent, let’s not just put an Advent wreath out as a decoration. Let’s really do Advent.
Let’s gather family or friends each week of the Advent season and pray that beautiful ritual together. We can do this.
And we don’t have to be embarrassed about it, either.
Let’s pick a day of the week and a time that works for the folks we’d like to join us.
We might have to say something like, “Hey, remember praying around the Advent wreath when we were kids? Let’s do that again this year.”
Let’s invite friends, neighbors, co-workers, grandparents, children and grandchildren.

Keep it short and sweet
Our Advent wreath ceremony doesn’t have to be a major production—10, 15 minutes max. That’s not too much to ask. And it’s pretty simple.
The Denver Catholic Register is making it easy by publishing an Advent wreath ritual each of the four weeks of the Advent season.
Clip it out of the paper or pull it up at www.archden.org and make all the copies you need.
And why?
Because it will be the first step in observing, living and celebrating the new Church year.
Because it will get us started remembering our call to holiness.
And just think: If we do Advent right—if we prepare the way of the Lord in our own lives, in our own households, in our own communities—Christmas this year may just be less about presents and more about the gift that we all received with the birth of the child Jesus.

Advent week 1
The following Advent wreath prayer is intended to help busy households make Advent a prayerful time during the rush of Christmas preparations. The language is fairly simple to be used by groups of adults or adults with children, and options are noted to allow for participation by a variety of members of the household.
Leader: Today begins a special time of year for us. This week we begin the season of Advent—that period of waiting and preparation before Christmas. In order to help each of us prepare our own hearts for the birth of Christ, we take these few moments each week to pray together.
• Light the first candle on the Advent wreath
• (optional) Read aloud Jere-miah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
• Leader: When people talked about us, wouldn’t it be great if they said they always saw us as a person just full of hope? The Bible passages that the church has chosen for this First Sunday of Advent point out two things that should fill us with hope—first, that God has promised he will care for us, and second that if we follow his ways, we can cope with even the most frightful events of life.
As we begin the season of Advent, the prophet Jeremiah sets the stage for hope, reminding us that God won’t forget his people. In the second reading and in the Gospel, evangelists Paul and Luke both suggest that now is a good time to be on our best behavior. Can we go this next week being “blameless in holiness before our God and Father?” The time to start living the right way is right now—this Advent—today.

Closing prayer:
(Leader may read all, or others in the household may each read a segment.)
(1.) Dear God, help us to remain hopeful and to trust in you no matter the trials and troubles life brings. This first week of Advent, help us remember that we are your people and that you are our God. Help us get our priorities straight and put the most important things first—loving God and loving our neighbor.
(2.) Holy Spirit, guide the choices we make throughout this week so that we choose to do what honors our creator and what shows our love of others.
(3.) Father in heaven, we offer thanks to you for the many gifts and talents you have given to all the people on the earth, to our family and friends, to the neighbors we know and the neighbors we have yet to befriend.
(4.) Come Lord Jesus. Come into our hearts, so that when the time comes, we will be prepared to join you in everlasting joy.