Festive Season

Shopping malls around Bangkok are getting ready for the festive season.😍🎄🎅

First Sunday of Advent

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“Almighty God, grant us the will to greet our Savior with our good works when He comes, so that we may be worthy to be on His right hand and possess the kingdom of heaven.”

-from In Conversation with God, Daily Meditations, Volume One: Advent and Christmastide-

The Season of Advent

The Month of Christmas

Anticipating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peace

Jesus, you are peace even when there is hatred.Help us to forgive like you when we are hurt or wounded.Bring peace into our hearts we pray. 
Amen


Hope

Jesus, you are light even in the darkest places.
Help us to trust in you when we are lost or lonely.
Shine hope into our hearts we pray.
Amen.

Peace: Second Sunday of Advent

A voice proclaims:

In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD!

Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!

Every valley shall be lifted up,

every mountain and hill made low;

The rugged land shall be a plain,

the rough country, a broad valley.

Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,

and all flesh shall see it together;

for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 40:3-5

Advent : Prepare the Way for the Lord !

   "Take time to be aware that in the very midst of our busy preparations for the celebration of Christ’s birth in ancient Bethlehem, Christ is reborn in the Bethlehems of our homes and daily lives. Take time, slow down, be still, be awake to the Divine Mystery that looks so common and so ordinary yet is wondrously present.

   "An old abbot was fond of saying, ‘The devil is always the most active on the highest feast days.’

   "The supreme trick of Old Scratch is to have us so busy decorating, preparing food, practicing music and cleaning in preparation for the feast of Christmas that we actually miss the coming of Christ. Hurt feelings, anger, impatience, injured egos—the list of clouds that busyness creates to blind us to the birth can be long, but it is familiar to us all."

Take Time to be Aware 

Edward Hays

A Pilgrims Almanac

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 
“Joseph, son of David, 
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit 
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, 
because he will save his people from their sins.”

Matthew 1:20-21

Third Sunday of Advent

"Prepare ye the way of the Lord: Make straight in the wilderness His paths; Every valley shall be exalted; Every mountain and hill shall be made low; And the crooked shall be made straight; And the rough ways plain."

Isaiah: 40:3, 4

Second Sunday of Advent

Prayer for the Advent Wreath

Lord, our God, we praise You for Your Son, Jesus Christ, for He is Emmanuel, the Hope of all people.
He is the Wisdom that teaches and guides us.
He is the Savior of us all.
O Lord,
let your blessing come upon us as we light the first and second (purple) candles of this wreath.
May the wreath and its light be a sign of Christ’s promise of salvation.
May He come quickly and not delay.
We ask this in His holy name. Amen.

Waiting

We light a candle today, a small dim light against a world that often seems forbidding and dark. But we light it because we are a people of hope, a people whose faith is marked by an expectation that we should always be ready for the coming of the Master. The joy and anticipation of this season is captured beautifully in the antiphons of hope from the monastic liturgies:

See! The ruler of the earth shall come, the Lord who will take from us the heavy burden of our exile
The Lord will come soon, will not delay.
The Lord will make the darkest places bright.
We must capture that urgency today in the small flame of our candle. We light the candle because we know that the coming of Christ is tied to our building of the kingdom. Lighting the flame, feeding the hungry, comforting the sick, reconciling the divided, praying for the repentant, greeting the lonely and forgotten – doing all these works hastens His coming.

First Sunday of Advent

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with the flocks,
then the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal those broken in spirit,
to feed the hungry,
to release the oppressed,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among all peoples,
to make a little music with the heart…
And to radiate the Light of Christ,
every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.
Then the work of Christmas begins. 

Howard Thurman 

Advent 2013

"The virgin will be with Child and will give birth to a Son, and they will call Him Immanuel."

Matthew 1:23