First Week of Advent Reflection
Welcome to the First Week of "A Journey through Advent and Christmas." In order to facilitate access to the Advent bundle including the reflections and audio for this Advent Program, information from the Companion Guide and links to the audio are included in this email. If you have already downloaded the content based upon our prior email, this is the same information contained in the download for the First Week of Advent.
Seeing Things Familiar
As the season of Advent begins, our journey leads us to a word most have heard before—Maranatha. It takes its origin from the Aramaic language, and put simply, it’s
an invocation that means “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Unfamiliar Again
Perhaps the idea of this simple prayer—Come, Lord Jesus—is familiar to us during Advent when we are waiting for and preparing for precisely this: the coming of Christ to dwell among us and in us. But do we know what we’re actually asking for? Do we know who Jesus really is? If our answer is anything other than “no,” then we’ve probably become a little too comfortable with the idea of who He really is. The fullness of God, who is love, incarnate in human form, is a mystery so deep that it cannot be exhausted. Its implications in our very lives are so vast that we struggle to even imagine life without the meaning it bestows. When we pray Maranatha, are we asking merely for the idea of Jesus that we’re comfortable with to come and occupy some nostalgic corner of our minds? Are we asking for a repeat of something we’ve asked for in the past? Or are we truly asking for Jesus, the living and true God, to come and be born in us so that His will might be done?
Read: Mark 13:33-37
Listen (click button below to access audio):
- #1 - In Need of a Savior (song by the Vigil Project)
- #2 - Keep Watch (Fr. Dave's Talk)
- #7 - Metanoia (song by the Vigil Project
- #4 - To Save Us All (song by the Vigil Project)
Reflect:
- What’s your earliest memory of Advent? What Advent traditions do you currently celebrate or remember from the past?
- What’s different about your life and circumstance this year than in years past? Where in your life is Jesus in relation to these differences? Where have you welcomed Him to come? Where have you perhaps not allowed Him to come?
- What do you hope for this Advent?
Pray:
Simplify the words of your prayer to that single phrase, Come, Lord Jesus. Spend several minutes giving some space and repeating it again. In those spaces, allow Jesus to show you who He really is and where He really wants to dwell in your life.