Monday, December 2, 2012
Advent Reflections

Diocese of Newark


Thank you for joining us as we begin the journey of Advent.  Each day you will receive a scripture reading, a reflection on that reading and a short prayer (except on Sundays when you will receive the Gospel lesson and a prayer).  The word "Advent" means "coming". It is a time to slow down, be quiet and meditate about the real meaning of Christmas.
  
These meditations and prayers have been prepared by a team of diverse members of our Diocese.  Joan Chittister, says: "The function of Advent is to remind us what we're waiting for as we go through life too busy with things that do not matter to remember the things that do. Advent asks the question, what is it for which you are spending your life?"
  
We all desperately crave more meaningful, less cluttered, lives, yet we rarely take the time to slow down and ask this question. The hope is that these reflections each day during the four weeks before Christmas will help us to prepare our hearts and our lives as we wait for the coming of Jesus.

May this Advent be a time of hope, anticipation and a deepening of our relationship with God. Please feel free to share.
                                                          Scripture
 

Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

            His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

2 Peter 1:1-11

Reflection
 

After the death of Jesus, and the scattering of his disciples known as the Dispersion, the apostles kept in touch by letters which could be read by them in their meetings as a way of "keeping the faith" and exhorting each other to remember what they had learned from Jesus and how it was applicable to the lives which they were now living without Him. This is such a letter, carried from place to place and offering his followers advice as to how to live a godly life.   Support your faith with goodness, knowledge, self-control, mutual affection and love and you will be able to live a life free from the "corruption" and other worldly cares . Remember the teachings of Jesus and reflect on the way he lived his life and you will be assured entry into the "eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ". How comforting it is to be given instructions on how to live our lives; now all we have to do is follow them.

 

Prayer
 
Patient God,
in this teetering time,
     this time in the balance,
          this time of waiting,
make me aware of moments,
     moments of song,
          moments of bread and friends,
               moments of jokes
                    (some of them on me)
                         which, for a moment, deflate my pomposities;
     moments of sleep and warm beds,
          moments of children laughing and parents bending,
               moments of sunsets and sparrows outspunking winter,
     moments  when broken things get mended
          with glue or guts or mercy or imagination;
               moments when splinters shine and rocks shrink,
                    moments when I know myself blest,
                         not because I am so awfully important,
                              but because you are so awesomely God,
                                   no less of the year to come
                                        as of all the years past;
                                   no less of this moment
                                        than of all my moments;
                                   no less of those who forget you
                                        as of those who remember,
                                             as I do now,
                                                  in this teetering time.
O Patient God,
make something new in me,
     in this year,
          for you.
 
                                                                                             Guerrillas of Grace, Ted Loder, p. 116

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