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The Second Sunday of Advent, Cycle A, December 4, 2022, Prayers of the Faithful, Matthew 3:1-12

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Second Sunday of Advent

December 4, 2022

Let us pray the river of justice may overflow its banks so to wash away our fears. May we bathe in God’s desire for our common good. May our pains be eased and cleansed.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to feel the warm breath of John the Baptist speaking out for those who live in silent desperation. May his words warm our cold declarations of hatred, illusions, and desolations.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to listen to the stories our poor try to tell us. May our ears listen attentively to the lives of people who have lost their employment, their warm homes, and their mental stability.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to stand firmly on earthly peace. May we not stumble as we ache for stable peace in Ukraine. May the sounds of gunfire in our nation challenge us to act for the benefit of our children.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to cut through our apathy with a prophet’s sword. May the weak find home with the strong, the illiterate turn pages of hope with the learned, and our children know the wisdom of our elderly.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to depend on love to heal our flimsy falsehoods. May we depend on the prophet’s presence to live with integrity. May Advent point us toward forgiveness and heavenly balm.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray our nightmares of self-hatred be transformed by God’s love. May we know God’s desire for us even when fear blankets us in the night.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for our loved ones who have crossed the deserts of life. May the dead reach the eternal shore of God’s kingdom.

We pray to the Lord.

REBLOG: “Advent: Unplanned Presence” from September 2015, Ministry and Liturgy Magazine

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From the September, 2015 issue of Ministry and Liturgy Magazine, my monthly column, “Bridge Work”

Advent: unplanned presence

I have moved ten times in over thirty-two years as a priest, crisscrossing the country from place to place. Each transition brings me great grief about leaving behind significant relationships and opportunities for ministry. After letting go of one ministry in a certain geographical area, I usually wake up one day in the next place and realize the people and situations that eluded my focus in the past few years. I regret not paying more attention in the moment, in the place of ministry and among the people with whom I pray and work.

With every new assignment, I learn to carry fewer possessions. Even though my relationships continuously change and I want to cling to my “stuff”, I let go of what weighs me down. I focus more clearly on what I possess within my own heart, my own relationship with God. I learn to trust more in times of transition even though my first reaction is usually fear.

I usually do not put all the pieces of opportunities and friendships together until I have actually left a ministry setting. Hindsight teaches me real love for people when I finally pull up stakes. Transitions are never easy.

However, starting again always brings unplanned grace. Unpacking my bags and opening my heart in a new parish takes time, patience and my full attention. I usually spend the first few months living in fear and wondering whether or not my gifts and talents will be wanted or accepted among the next group of people. My planned fears have always melted away into moments of unplanned grace in each encounter and relationship in ministry.

I reflect again on these transitions as we begin our new liturgical year in Advent. As I ponder the first birth of Christ, I realize that Mary’s pregnancy was unplanned. Mary’s unexpected pregnancy brought great fear and even threatened the future of Mary and Joseph’ plans for marriage. The presence of Christ even in the womb threatened people, caused them to adjust to a new way of thinking, and ultimately called everyone involved to trust more deeply into the call God had for each one of them. This unplanned presence of Christ was made flesh when Jesus was born on the margins of a village in a animals’ shelter in the nighttime.

From these Advent gospels, we are now called to prepare ourselves for the unexpected second coming of Christ. In this ultimate transition, people will die of fright in the anticipation of what is coming into the world. The powers of heaven will be shaken. We are to wake up and not let our hearts become drowsy from the anxieties of earthly life and in our daily routines. This unexpected presence of Christ will catch us in our complacency and uproot us from our most intimate relationships, our most valued of all possessions.

John the Baptist cries out in full trust in behalf of the Kingdom of God. He shreds our notions that we are to cling to anything on earth. He yanks us out of our daily illusions and shakes us from our notions that we are to rely only on ourselves. John challenges us to live our lives ready for the ultimate transition of Christ’s second coming.

In these Advent days, we are challenged as ministers to cultivate a new desire for God within our assemblies. This challenge becomes more countercultural during these months when we naturally turn to our human families in love. We often believe that these relationships are all that we need. We also cling tightly to our possessions for ultimate satisfaction.

However, this is the time of year that we must articulate even more the presence of Christ in people who fear their families of origin, or people who have not been accepted by them, or even abused by those they love. We are to wake people up to those who wait at our country’s border for housing, employment, and safety. We are to open people’s eyes to our own children who walk the streets at night searching for drugs, waiting for acceptance as they sell their bodies. We are to wait with people who sit at the bedsides of their family members who are ill and afraid of the nighttime.

We are to crouch down and care for our neighbors who sleep on our sidewalks or in the doorways of our churches. We are to befriend and listen to our teenagers with blue hair and with their new piercings. We desperately need to wake people up, to remind them that we are always in transition. We need let go of our beliefs that life should always be secure and lived according to our own plans. We need to call people back to an ultimate trust in God and to loosen their grasp on their own riches and their stockpiled reliance on human ways.

Advent challenges us to always live in transition. However, these transitions help us open our eyes to the ways Christ is revealing hope, love and salvation among us. These transitions also help us to really see people who are different from ourselves. We celebrate Advent by reflecting on our ultimate transition from our earthly cares into our reliance on Christ’s real presence leading us into the Kingdom of God.

The First Sunday of Advent, Cycle A, November 27, 2022, Prayers of the Faithful, Matt 24:37-44

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Let us pray to wake up to the throbbing pulse of violence in our world. May peace replace gunfire, may hope shield us from despair, and love become a breastplate to protect us from darkness. We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to stay awake in the bitter cold of apathy. May we learn to care for people surviving without insurance, healthcare, and protective shelter. May we wake from our sleep to work diligently for people’s survival. We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to confront our unfaithful hearts. May we tend our hearts to birth gentleness once again within all our relationships. May we yearn only for God this Advent. We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to cut the ties of panic that bind us in the dark. May fear and discouragement loosen in us to reveal the face of Jesus this Advent. We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to wake up to offer gratitude for our families and those we love. May we view our sleeping families with joy in our protective households. May gratitude be born this Advent. We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to remember our journey to Bethlehem and to Calvary in this new liturgical year. May faith become a flare we carry for those surviving dark wars and hatred. May we live the power of Christ’s presence on earth. We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to cuddle tenderness and not hate. May we embrace justice for people living behind iron bars, may we provide soup for immigrants, and offer coats for people shoved in cold corners of poverty. We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for our beloved dead. May they not wait to see the glory of Jesus’ face. May home for them be eternal and filled with joy. We pray to the Lord.