The Season of Advent -- 2005 -- Praying Each Day

EWTN ^ | Advent 2005 | EWTN

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Click here for the active Advent calendar

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Advent -- the beginning of the Church Liturgical Year

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	ADVENT The word Advent is from the Latin adventus for "coming" and is associated with the four weeks of preparation for Christmas. Advent always contains four Sundays, beginning on the Sunday nearest the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, (November 30) and continuing until December 24. It blends together a penitential spirit, very similar to Lent, a liturgical theme of preparation for the Second and Final Coming of the Lord, called the Parousia, and a joyful theme of getting ready for the Bethlehem event. Since the 900s Advent has been considered the beginning of the Church year. This does not mean that Advent is the most important time of the year. Easter has always had this honor. The traditional color of Advent is purple or violet which symbolizes the penitential spirit. Religious traditions associated with Advent express all these themes.

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Catholic Advent Ping!

Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Catholic Advent Ping List.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Here's something that Pope Benedict wrote back in 86:

Memory Awakens Hope. . . . . . . . . . . . . Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Seek That Which Is Above,1986

"Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope.…

It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope."

[Salvation]

ADVENT WREATH "Customarily the Advent Wreath is constructed of a circle of evergreen branches into which are inserted four candles. According to tradition, three of the candles are violet and the fourth is rose. However, four violet or white candles may also be used” (Book of Blessings 1510). The rose candle is lit the third Sunday of Advent, for this color anticipates and symbolizes the Christmas joy announced in the first word of the Entrance Antiphon: "Rejoice" (Latin, Gaudete). For this reason the Third Sunday is also called Gaudete Sunday, and rose color vestments are permitted. The Advent Wreath represents the long time when people lived in spiritual darkness, waiting for the coming of the Messiah, the Light of the world. Each year in Advent people wait once again in darkness for the coming of the Lord, His historical coming in the mystery of Bethlehem, His final coming at the end of time, and His special coming in every moment of grace. During Advent, family and friends can gather around the Advent Wreath lighting the appropriate candle(s), read from the daily Advent meditation and sing songs. The Church's official Book of Blessings also provides a blessing ceremony for the advent wreath which can be used in the absence of  a priest.

[Salvation]

**Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man.**

This is where the unchurched and the atheists lose their hope! Not that they have lost their memory, but they have losot their hope.

[Salvation]

Preparing to Prepare

by Elizabeth Foss

Other Articles by Elizabeth Foss

Preparing to Prepare

11/26/05

I don’t know why it catches me by surprise. It happens almost every year. The Sunday after Thanksgiving is the first Sunday of Advent. The commercial world is telling us that the Christmas season is upon us. It’s not.

But a sacred time of preparation awaits us, if only we prepare to prepare.

What will Advent hold for you this year? How will you draw nearer to the Infant in the manger? How will you draw nearer to the child in your home? How will you prepare your home and your heart so that you can throw wide your doors and invite in the traveler? What’s your vision?

The Church, in her wisdom, sets aside two seasons of the year for preparation. She invites us to contemplate, to pray, to seek the Lord and to purposefully prepare for the feasts that follow. Preparation is deliberate and thoughtful.

In stark contrast, the secular version of the days leading up to Christmas is one of hustle and bustle. And in the frenzied busyness, we lose our vision, if we ever had one at all. While Lent and Advent are but seasons in a year, all of childhood is a time of preparation. A child is born, after nine months of waiting, and we set about the very serious task of preparing him for adulthood. Is it a frenzied, busy rush to grow up, or is it a purposeful, deliberate journey to spiritual and emotional adulthood? Look closely at the child in your life. What is important — right now — for his growth as a human being? What can you do with the next four weeks to foster a true sense of the sacred and to enable that child to truly experience the birth of the Savior in his heart?

So often, whether in December or in ordinary time, we get swept along by the culture. We spend carpooling time listening to the news on the radio or chatting on a cell phone, missing golden opportunities for conversation with our young passengers. We spend dinnertime pushing the revolving door as family members scatter to important activities. We spend evenings and weekends furthering a career because our work is important and vital to society and to our own sense of self. Childhood is so brief. And we let it pass without giving it serious thought. Without our pondering and praying and articulating a vision, we let our opportunity to shape souls slip by. Like the hustle and bustle of the December, childhood takes on the rapid cadence of sports tournaments and dance practices, hurried mornings and frantic evenings, until one day, we collapse in an exhausted heap. We are surrounded, not by wrapped packages and lit trees on the morning of the feast, but by caps and gowns, suitcases and traveling trunks. The child is leaving. Did you spend the time scurrying or did you spend it singing lullabies?

Will you spend Advent flitting from packages to parties or will you do something meaningful? In this brief space between Thanksgiving and Advent, take some time to pray. Take some time to plan and to prepare. How can this time be a purposeful journey as a family? What is really, eternally important in the life of your child?

Perhaps you will choose to do together some of the wonderful traditional Advent activities found at the Domestic Church website or the Women for Faith and Family website. Or perhaps you will simply sit quietly with your child, every night from now until Christmas, as he drifts off to sleep, listening to him and sharing your heart with him. And when he’s finally sleeping, you might linger a moment more and ask God to show you how to bring your child ever closer every day to the crèche. Pray for the blessings of a peace-filled Advent.


Elizabeth Foss is a freelance writer from northern Virginia. Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss can be purchased at www.4reallearning.com.

(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)

[Knitting A Conundrum]

The reason the Word of God became man
from the treatise of Irenaeus, 130-200 A.D.

For this reason the Word of God became man and the Son of God became the son of man in order that man, being mingled with the Word of God and being granted adoption should become the son of God.

In no other way could we have received incorruptibility and immortality, without ourselves first being united to them. How could we be made one with incorruptibility and mortality by immortality and so enable us to receive adoption as sons.

This same Son of God, therefore, who is our Lord and the existing Word of the Father is also son of man. He was born like other men, born of Mary, who was herself of human stock and a member of the human race, and so he became the son of man.

It was for this reason that the Lord gave a sign here below and in heaven above that man had not asked for. Man had neither hoped that a virgin could be with child and bear a son, although she was a virgin; nor that this child would be God with us, coming down to the earth below in search of the sheep that was lost (which he himself had made) and once again ascending on high and offering in trust to the Father the man he had found. This same Lord himself became the first-fruits of the resurrection of man, so that the resurrection of the head should mean the resurrection of the rest of the body, and that every man alive should rise again on completion of the time of the punishment, which his disobedience had earned. For the body in its varied
joints and ligaments grows up and is strengthened by God’s aid, and each of the members has its appropriate fitting place in the body. The Father has many mansions in the same way as there are many members in the body.

When, therefore, man fell, God was geneours in mercy, since he foresaw the victory which would be his through the agency of the Word. For because his power was made perfect in weakness, he displayed the kindness of God and the greatness of his power.

[Tired of Taxes]

Funny that I should come across this thread...

I've been considering having my children keep an Advent wreath this year, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it. I imagine myself lighting real candles, only to set the evergreens on fire and then running around in a panic trying to extinguish the flames.

Would electric lighted candles be tacky? Maybe I should just have them make Advent calendars - much safer.

What do you do?

[Salvation]

You have FReepmail.

[Salvation]

I decided to post my message too.

You can get the makings for an Advent wreath at your local Catholic book store: metal frame, candles or you can do as I have done and shop the Christmas bazaars for an Advent wreath. One year I found one from wood made in a square with interlocking corners.

I only lighted mine (when we had children) at meal time. Then we were all seated around the table and there was no chance for it to catch on fire.

If you do not want to use pillar candles you could alsways use votive candles in glass holders that would not drip on any greenery.

I know I was always worried about the chance of it all catching fire, but I never had a problem with lighting it only at meal time and prayer times as we sat around our table. (Sometimes we would move the wreath to the coffee table -- Sunday evenings -- for prayer.)

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I don't have a wreath, but I have the candles sitting in a circle, and I intend to light them!

[Salvation]

	Advent House This is a popular rendition of the Jesse Tree and is usually purchased in a religious goods store. It has windows to be opened each day during Advent, each displaying a feature of the coming of the Christ Child. On December 24 the door is opened, revealing the Nativity scene.   Advent Calendar A personal calendar can be made for the four weeks before Christmas. On the calendar, a person can mark the Advent Calendar with personal goals of preparation or acts of service to be done for others.

[Desdemona]

You can get a wreath that isn't evergreen. I have one that's pewter.

If you really want to do real evergreens, at Wal-mart, or something, you might be able to get a circular trench and put oasis in it to keep the boughs from drying too badly. An aluminum or glass pie plate might work, too, just to keep the evergreens wet in the oasis.

[Salvation]

We had a calendar made of felt, with tiny ornaments (and a Bible verse) to pin on the empty tree at the top of the calendar. My five children took turns taking the little ornament off the calendar, reading the verse, and putting it on the tree at the top of the calendar.

But we also had an Advent wreath too.

[Salvation]

Good idieas.

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Advent Wreath Blessing

 

All     In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

            Amen.

Leader

Our help is in the name of the Lord.

 All     Who made heaven and earth.

 Leader

In the short days and long nights of Advent, we realize how we were always waiting for deliverance, always needing salvation by our God. Around this wreath, we shall remember God's promise.

 Scripture Reading

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone. You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing.

This is the Word of the Lord. 

(Alternate readings: Isaiah 63:16-17 or Isaiah 64:2-7) 

All     Thanks be to God.

 Lord's Prayer

 Leader

Let us now pray for God's blessing upon us and upon this wreath.  

Lord our God, we praise you for your child, Jesus Christ:
the Emmanuel, the hope of the peoples,
the wisdom that teaches and guides us, the Savior of every nation.

Lord God, let your blessing come upon us as we light the candles of this wreath.

May the wreath and its light be a sign of Christ's promise to bring us salvation.

May he come quickly and not delay. 

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

All     Amen.

Light the first candle.

Leader

            Let us bless the Lord.

All     Thanks be to God. (Making the sign of the cross)

The blessing concludes with a verse from “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” or another advent song.

 

 Each day in Advent, perhaps at the evening meal, light the candles: one candle the first week, two the second, and so forth.

[livius]

The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope.

Very beautiful and thought provoking quote. Thanks for posting it!

[Salvation]

Week 1: First Sunday of Advent  Prayer for the Advent Wreath Lord, our God, we praise You for Your Son, Jesus Christ, for He is Emmanuel, the Hope of all people. He is the Wisdom that teaches and guides us. He is the Savior of us all. O Lord, let your blessing come upon us as we light the first (purple) candle of this wreath. May the wreath and its light be a sign of Christ’s promise of salvation. May He come quickly and not delay. We ask this in His holy name. Amen.   Waiting  We light a candle today, a small dim light against a world that often seems forbidding and dark. But we light it because we are a people of hope, a people whose faith is marked by an expectation that we should always be ready for the coming of the Master. The joy and anticipation of this season is captured beautifully in the antiphons of hope from the monastic liturgies: See! The ruler of the earth shall come,  the Lord who will take from us the heavy burden of our exile The Lord will come soon, will not delay. The Lord will make the darkest places bright. We must capture that urgency today in the small flame of our candle. We light the candle because we know that the coming of Christ is tied to our building of the kingdom. Lighting the flame, feeding the hungry, comforting the sick, reconciling the divided, praying for the repentant, greeting the lonely and forgotten – doing all these works hastens His coming.

[Tired of Taxes]

Thanks for the advice!