Posted on 11/26/2005 9:50:23 AM PST by Salvation
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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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Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Catholic Advent Ping List.
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. Advents 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 Churchs year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the hearts 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."
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**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.
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Preparing to Prepare |
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11/26/05 |
I dont 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. Its not. |
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 Gods 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.
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?
You have FReepmail.
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.)
I don't have a wreath, but I have the candles sitting in a circle, and I intend to light them!
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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.
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.
Good idieas.
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.
Very beautiful and thought provoking quote. Thanks for posting it!
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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.
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 |
Thanks for the advice!
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