Preparing for the coming of Christ
Sunday 3rd December is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the four week season when we prepare for Christmas, the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. To mark this we light the first of the Advent candles.
Here is a prayer to help us to focus on this season of Advent, to make us ready for the hope of Christmas.
God with us,
We begin the season of Advent,
The beginning of the Church’s year,
With a wake-up call in the Gospel readings:
Be vigilant, get with it, get real.
Don’t let your hearts get stuck in a rut,
Bogged down in the cares of life.
And what do we care about? Sometimes the wrong things,
Like how we look, or what we wear, or what phone
We’ve got. At this time of year, everything around us
Will remind us of what we want, but don’t really need.
The high streets glitter with lovely stuff.
Help us to understand gift in a different way,
In a different currency, like time, or presence, or prayer,
And to think about giving more than receiving.
It’s not easy, Lord, to swim against this tide.
The Gospel isn’t telling us to be Scrooge,
But it is telling us to look at the condition of our hearts –
What treasure sits there?
The Gospel tells us that our liberation is at hand,
Liberation from the game of glamour, envy and greed.
So help us this advent, Lord,
To snap out of the dream of the world
And begin to look at things
With new eyes,
A new heart.
By Raymond Friel
