This weekend, we celebrate the beginning of the Advent season right after our Thanksgiving holiday. I am sure you all are like me this year, feeling a bit mixed up and uneasy as we begin this season of preparation for Christmas. I am still reflecting upon how God wants me to approach this Advent season, as things are so different in the world right now. I found this prayer on the Catholic Relief Services website. Reflecting on this prayer has helped me think about how I need to prepare during this season of Advent.
An Advent Prayer: In Shadows as Well as Light
Loving and gracious God: When the days grow longer, casting long, cold shadows, allowing fear and despair into our lives, let my light shine brighter.
When the task grows more wearisome, filling valleys and flattening mountains, building highways in the desert, be the strength in my bones.
When I wait on you, and they shake their heads, saying, "Have you not heard the news?”, keep in my heart the great good news that makes even the child in the womb leap with joy:
That you are coming into the world.
May I praise you in shadow as well as light.
May I praise you in winter as well as spring.
May I praise you in silence as well as song.
May I praise you in solitude as well as companionship.
May I praise you in illness as well as health.
And when the last, glowing beam disappears over the horizon and darkness shrouds the land, give me the grace to say to all: Despair not.
Morning is coming: Come, Lord Jesus, come. AMEN.
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