An Advent Prayer

Lord, may you now let us this year once more approach the light, celebration, and joy of Christmas Day that brings us face to face with the greatest thing there is: your love, with which you so loved the world that you gave your only Son, so that all of us may believe in him and therefore not be lost, but may have eternal life.

What could we possibly bring and give to you? So much darkness in our human relationships and in our own hearts! So many confused thoughts, so much coldness and defiance, so much carelessness and hatred! So much over which you cannot rejoice, that separates us from one another and certainly cannot help us! So much that runs directly against the message of Christmas!

What should you possibly do with such gifts? And what are you to do with such people as we all are? But all of this is precisely what you want to receive from us and take from us at Christmas—the whole pile of rubbish and ourselves, just as we are—in order to give us in return Jesus, our Savior, and in him a new heaven and a new earth, new hearts and a new desire, new clarity and a new hope for us and for all people....

Be among us as we once again...together prepare to receive him as your gift! Make it so that we may rightly speak, hear, and pray, in proper, thankful amazement about everything that you have in mind for all of us, that you have already decided regarding all of us, and that you have already done for all of us!

Amen.

~Karl Barth

O Jesus, living in Mary, thank you for coming to be our Savior!

Rejoice!

Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near. ~Entrance Antiphon, Third Sunday of Advent (cf. Phil 4:4, 5)

Ave Maria! Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday or "Rejoice Sunday". According to my well-worn Collins Latin-English/English Latin Dictionary from my high school days, the Latin word "gaudeo" means "rejoice, be pleased, delight in." And this is precisely what the Church does today as we pass the midpoint of Advent. The mood lightens a bit as the priest wears rose-colored vestments at Mass and we light the rose candle in our Advent wreaths. As we pray in our Alternative Opening Prayer, "the earth rejoices in hope of the Savior's coming and looks forward with longing to his return at the end of time." Because we still experience the sorrows, losses and unhappiness of life on this earth, we beg the Father to "Prepare our hearts and remove the sadness that hinders us from feeling the joy and hope which his presence will bestow, for he is Lord for ever and ever. Amen."

Today is also the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! I am on my way to our parish celebration for this happy occasion, which begins at 3am, so I will continue blogging later. Until then, dear family and friends, and now and forever:

REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS!