Inspiration for your journey to God!

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Advent Journey to Christmas

Advent journey to Christmas

Wait in stillness!

Journey to Christmas?  Yes, it’s called Advent.  Several years ago, I bought a book called Monastery Journey to Christmas, by Brother Victor-Antoine D’Avila-Latourrette  It’s a small book with daily meditations which start on November 15 and go through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany (also known at Three Kings), Theophany(Baptism of Jesus) and Candlemas (Presentation of Jesus).  I love this book because it begins on November 15 – usually before the start of Advent.  It’s a good way to settle myself and get into the proper frame of mind to commence Advent on the right foot – in the spirit of WAITING!

Each year I start reading when Advent begins because I forget that the meditations start way before and then I have to play catch up.  This year, I remembered and pulled the book out just three days late instead of weeks late.  Anyway, I’ve begun to quiet the mind, to be on guard for the temptation of the commercial world.  I highly recommend this book.  It provides great insight, ideas and history.  You’ll definitely learn some things you never knew.

I’d like to share Bro. Victor’s meditation for November 18:  Advent Waiting

Advent is primarily about waiting.  It is about waiting for the Lord to come.  There is something special about this particular type of waiting.  First of all, waiting is a spiritual attitude we cultivate deep within ourselves.  We know the Lord is coming, and therefore we desire and hasten his arrival by a patient attitude of waiting for him.  We wait and wait for the Lord.  We become very conscious of the waiting.  It is an eager waiting, full of anticipation and wonder, for as the prophets of old, our companions on the road, we long to see his face.  

The Lord, of course, is very much aware of this patient waiting, of this deep yearning for him, and he is ever ready to come into our lives and fulfill our deepest desires.  Advent waiting is always twofold.  On our part, we await prayerfully, consciously and anticipate his coming.  On God’s part, he is eager to arrive and find a warm dwelling place in our hearts.  The greater our desire and patience in waiting for him, the fuller we shall be filled with his presence.

The early Christians, as the Apostle James reminds us, live daily, steadily, waiting patiently for the Lord.  Of course, they thought this was going to be the Lord’s final, triumphant coming and it was going to happen very soon, thus they wished to be ready for it.  Perhaps at one point they were a bit disappointed that it didn’t occur according to their expectations.  At the end, it didn’t matter, for their eager waiting for him was rewarded by the Lord entering into their lives more fully and transforming every inch of their beings.  

Furthermore, many of them were blessed with a physical vision of the Lord just before they underwent martyrdom.  The Lord may not always act according to our expectations.  After all, he tells us in the Scripture, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.”  Yet he never disappoints us.

If we learn to cultivate this inner attitude of waiting for him steadily, faithfully, not only during the blessed Advent days, but throughout the whole of our lives, we shall likewise be rewarded with the grace, joy and warmth of his real presence in the innermost of our hearts.

Ok………. so………….funny story.   After typing this entire meditation, I realized the ending didn’t ring a bell.     Am I losing my mind?  Yes and no!  I realized, it wasn’t the page I intended to share.  But as we all know, God has a great sense of humor and obviously He had other plans!

I won’t post another meditation from the same book, so I’ll just mention the basic idea of what I intended to post.  It was about making Advent “plans.”  To decide early on how you will approach Advent and what you will do differently this year to observe the spirit of stillness and waiting.

Bro. Victor makes a good point in the meditation.  He says: “often if no plans are made in advance, much of Advent goes unnoticed and wasted.”  So there  you have it. Make plans.  Slow down.  If you have children, start a tradition with them – teach them the art of waiting.  Help them to embrace and savor the season of waiting, instead of jumping right into Christmas after Halloween (yes, I meant to say HALLOWEEN)!

Let’s get back to the meditation God shared.  I was moved by several of the words in it (I’ve set them in boldface).  It dawned on me that Bro. Victor was describing the benefits of contemplation.  What I got from it is Advent waiting is more than a preparation for Christmas.

Advent serves to prepare us for life in and with Christ.  Here’s what I mean:  I have learned through reading that in contemplation God works in  us – we do nothing but surrender.  So many times, people will say that they didn’t “feel” anything when they were just sitting in contemplation.  The reality is you may not feel anything, but God is working in you through grace.

Let’s try an experiment.  Take all the boldface lines out of the context.  When read together you may agree with what I am saying.

On our part, we await prayerfully, consciously and anticipate his coming.  On God’s part, he is eager to arrive and find a warm dwelling place in our hearts.  The greater our desire and patience in waiting for him, the fuller we shall be filled with his presence.

We sit prayerfully during contemplation in the hopes of growing in deeper union with God (anticipating his coming).  God on the other hand is always waiting for us to surrender to his action and presence in our lives.  When we surrender and are ready to receive him we begin to feel him taking up residence in our hearts.

At the end, it didn’t matter, for their eager waiting for him was rewarded by the Lord entering into their lives more fully and transforming every inch of their beings.  

In the end, it doesn’t matter that we don’t “feel” anything. It doesn’t matter what our expectations are because regardless of what we feel, we are being fully transformed!

we shall likewise be rewarded with the grace, joy and warmth of his real presence in the innermost of our hearts.

God is showering down his grace on us during contemplation.  Through this grace we become joyful, warm and radiant!  Thanks be to God!

If you currently do not have a regular practice of contemplation I hope that you will resolve to start one.  The benefits are AWESOME!  Read up on it – I have several books listed on my recommended reading page.  This is not some New Age thing I’m promoting, it is a tried and true Christian practice.  Not only will you benefit from your practice, but the whole world will as well.  The world needs more contemplatives!
Happy Thanksgiving and God bless you!

O Come, O Come Emmanuel!

Santa kneeling before Christ

The Kneeling Santa

 

O Come, O Come Emmanuel!    Merry Christmas everyone, may you experience the peace and joy that comes with knowing God is with us always.  Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the  Christmas season is not OVER, it’s just begun!

 

 

I recently came across this Nativity blessing – the moving words shine a whole new light on how I approach a manger scene. I hope it does the same for you.

Blessing before a Christmas Stable – Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.

Lord Jesus, as I kneel before your manger in adoration, let my first Christmas words be:  thank you.  Thank you, Gift of the Father, for coming to save me from my sins.

Without you I do not know even how to be human.  The characteristics of your human body express the divine Person of God’s Son.  And in that wondrous expression, Lord, you reveal me to myself.  Thank you for that saving revelation in your sacred humanity.  As the Christmas liturgy proclaims, “For through him the holy exchange that restores our life has shone forth today in splendor.”  Thank you for coming  as one like myself to save me from myself.

You come as a baby because babies are irresistible and adorable.  You come as a baby because you want our first impression of God incarnate to be that of one who does not judge.  How I long to be united with you in every way.  May I never be attracted to the allurements and charms of the world.  May I love you always, at every moment, with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.  May the tenderness, the dependency, and the mercy that you reveal in your infancy become the hallmarks of my life.

Newborn Savior, the very silence of your incarnation proclaims that the answer to the misery, the strife, and the meaninglessness of life cannot be found within us.  You alone are the answer.  As I kneel before you, eternal King, I surrender to you all my selfishness, self-indulgence, self-righteousness, and self-exaltation.  Even as I adore you on this night of your birth, rid me of the nagging desire to be adored.

Word become flesh, you make your dwelling among us.  Yet you do not live your life for yourself, but for us.  And you enable us to live in you all that you yourself lived.  Help me to embrace this truth with all my mind and heart.  Come and live your life in me.  Empty me of my willfulness, my petulance, my hardness, my cynicism, my contemptuousness.  Fill me with your truth, your strength, your fortitude,  your purity, your gentleness, your generosity, your wisdom, your heart, and your grace.

O Emmanuel, may the assurance of your unfailing Presence be for me the source of unending peace.  May I never fear my weakness, my inadequacy, or my imperfection.  Rather, as I gaze with faith, hope, and love upon your incarnate littleness, may I love my own littleness, for God is with us.  Endow my life with the holy wonder that leads me ever more deeply into the Mystery of Redemption and the meaning of my vocation and destiny.

Longed-for Messiah, your servant Saint Leo the Great well wrote that in the very act of reverencing the birth of our Savior, we are also celebrating our own new birth.  From this night on may my life be a dedicated life of faith marked by holy reliance, receptivity, and resoluteness.  May I make of my life a total gift of self.  May my humble worship of your Nativity manifest how much I seek the Father’s kingship and his way of holiness.  The beauty of your holy face bears the promise that your Father will provide for us in all things.  This Christmas I renew my trust in God’s goodness, compassion and providence.  I long for the day when you will teach us to pray “Our Father.”

May your Presence, Prince of Peace, bless the world with peace, the poor with care and prosperity, the despairing with hope and confidence, the grieving with comfort and gladness, the oppressed with freedom and deliverance, the suffering with solace and relief.  Loving Jesus, you are the only real joy of every human heart.  I place my trust in you.

Oh, divine Fruit of Mary’s womb, may I love you in union with the holy Mother of God.  May my life be filled with the obedience of Saint Joseph and the missionary fervor of the shepherds, so that the witness of my life may shine like the star that leads the Magi to your manger.  I ask all this with great confidence in your holy name.   Amen.

Enjoy Peter Hollens rendition of O Come, O Come Emmanuel here.  God bless you!
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