Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Advent is coming! A vigil in preparation for Advent.

Good Evening Dear Family of Love!

Happy Day after Thanksgiving! I hope everyone is taking time to rest, pray, and reconnect! On Sunday we will begin the season of Advent a time where we await the celebration of the birth of Jesus on Christmas. Tonight we begin a two night vigil of preparation to set the tone for this time of joyful expectation.  

To prepare for this seasonal change let us begin with our traditional mindfulness exercises, "The Be Stills"

Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.

Repeat, breathe, and go to your happy place.


Let us light our candles, make vigil, and pray.

God as we await the season of Advent  and preparation for your Son' Jesus's birth may we be united again with him and each other.

God as we await joyfully this most special day of days may we see Jesus in the eyes of each other and hold the Christ light for then.

God may we be sensitive to the needs of our family members nearby and far away.

God may we learn to have patience, slow down, and be.

God may we take time to be at one with You and each other.

God may we take away any label that divides us and that we may only be we and only have our names to identify each other.

God may peace prevail upon Earth beginning with ourselves, just like pebbles in a pond.

God may we step up and show love and compassion to those who mourn.

God may we learn to serve our fragile family members without fear and lovingly respond to their needs.

God  we pray for the healing of our bodies, minds, and spirits and all of our family members who are ill.
God fill our hearts with love to overflowing so that everyone will know that we are your children and truly the Family of Love and at one with each other.

God we pray for __________________________

God we offer our thanksgivings ____________________

God we celebrate this day _______________________

God help us to remember___________________________

God lift up these our prayers in the name of your son Jesus our redeemer, healer, reconciler, master, brother, and friend.  Amen.

Meditations to ponder and engage our heart homes.

Waiting for God

A reading from Henri Nouwen

 Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? You cannot do anything about it, so you have to sit there and just wait. It is not difficult to understand the irritation people feel when somebody says, ‘Just wait’. Words like that seem to push us into passivity. 

But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. That’s the secret. The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment.

 A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. The moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her. Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary were very present to the moment. That is why they could hear the angel. They were alert, attentive to the voice that spoke to them and said, ‘Don't be afraid. Something is happening to you. Pay attention.’

 But there is more. Waiting is open-ended Open-ended waiting is hard for us because we tend to wait for something very concrete, for something that we wish to have. Much of our waiting is filled with wishes: ‘I wish that I would have a job. I wish that the weather would be better. I wish that the pain would go.’ We are full of wishes, and our waiting easily gets entangled in those wishes. For this reason, a lot of our waiting is not open-ended. Instead, our waiting is a way of controlling the future. We want the future to go in a very specific direction, and if this does not happen we are disappointed and can even slip into despair. That is why we have such a hard time waiting: we want to do the things that will make the desired events take place. Here we can see how wishes tend to be connected with fears. 

But Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary were not filled with wishes. They were filled with hope. Hope is something very different. Hope is trusting that something will be fulfilled, but fulfilled according to the promises and not just according to our wishes. Therefore, hope is always open-ended. 

I have found it very important in my own life to let go of my wishes and start hoping. It was only when I was willing to let go of wishes that something really new, something beyond my own expectations could happen to me. Just imagine what Mary was actually saying in the words, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord... let what you have said be done to me’ (Luke 1:38). She was saying, ‘I don’t know what this all means, but I trust that good things will happen.’ She trusted so deeply that her waiting was open to all possibilities. And she did not want to control them. She believed that when she listened carefully, she could trust what was going to happen. 

To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God moulds us according to God's love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.

 Watch for the Light : 

Readings for Advent and Christmas. – Farmington, PA : The Plough Publishing House, 2001. – (from the reading for 28 November)

"O Rest in the Lord" from Elijah

O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him,

And He shall give thee thy heart’s desires.

Oh, rest in the Lord,

Wait patiently for Him,

& He shall give thee thy heart’s desires;

& He shall give thee thy heart’s desires.

Commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him,

Commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him,

And fret not thyself because of evil doers.

O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him.

Wait patiently for Him.

Oh rest in the Lord,

wait patiently for Him.

& He shall give thee thy heart’s desires.

He shall give thee thy heart’s desires

& He shall give thee thy heart’s desires.

Oh rest in the Lord.

Oh rest in the Lord.

& wait, wait, patiently for Him.

by Felix Mendelssohn (Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy) (1809-1847), 1846

from Psalm 37

A reading from Oscar Romero.

 God comes, and his ways are near to us. God saves in history. Each person’s life, each one’s history, is the meeting place to which God comes. How satisfying to know one need not go to the desert to meet him, need not go to some particular spot in the world. God is in your own heart. * * * 

Who will put a prophet’s eloquence into my words to shake from their inertia all those who kneel before the riches of the earth – who would like gold, money, lands, power, political life to be their everlasting gods? All that is going to end. There will remain only the satisfaction of having been, in regard to money or political life, a person faithful to God’s will. One must learn to manage the relative and transitory things of earth according to his will, not make them absolutes. There is only one absolute: he who awaits us in the heaven that will not pass away. Oscar Romero, 10 December, 1978 

+++++

Let us be at prayer:

Gracious and loving Father and Mother God and  Creator  of the Universe and the nurturing parent of us all may we take this time to be present with you and quiet our hearts and minds as we take time in this oasis of prayer.

God we have been given many prayer requests from our family members and we pray for ourselves as well.  May we boldly ask and graciously have time to be in conversation with you as we pray for:

Your children of all ages who are ill and suffering .We remember especially babies who are ill and their parents who stay with them. 

We pray for all our family members and their children who are waiting patiently with them when they are hospitalized.

We pray for all those who are suffering addictions of any kind may they find the courage to become sober and go into the proper rehab facility for treatment.

We pray for all of us who have cancer and that when we have bad weeks we may lay low and rest and when we have good weeks we may have energy to work, play, and do tasks and at the same time honor what you and our bodies are telling us.

We pray for all who are in transition and looking for work may they find patience to wait and may they find the employment they are seeking.

We pray for all who are going or are on pilgrimage to the many sacred places in this world. May they travel safe and feel your presence with them in every step.

We pray for all who travel and may they be safe and secure and that your presence will surround them as they go.

We pray for all who are dying and who have died remembering also our family pets.

We pray for all those who have gone missing and are featured in Amber Alerts, We especially remember all victims of human trafficking and the Missing Girls in Nigeria #BringBackOurGirls.

We pray for peace and justice in the world. We pray for an end to all the violence, oppression, injustices, and that dignity, respect, equality, and acceptance will roll down like justice. We pray that we may continue to Do Justly, Love mercy, and Walk Humbly with our God.

We pray for rain in the drought parched areas of our country and in the world.

May we take time for our personal prayers and reflection and put on the timer for what ever time you choose.

Please add prayers, thanksgivings, remembrances, and any kind of things that you are celebrating.

Please add:

Those with mental illnesses 

Alzheimer's and dementia patients and their family members and caregivers.

Caregivers

Those who are ill and those who are trying to work while ill.

For our medical professionals.

For our troops and law enforcement personnel.

EMTS and Firemen

For people seeking employment and new life paths

Clergy, religious leaders of all faith communities and the people they serve and pastorally care for. We pray especially those who are discerning vocations to ministry and for courage to accept and follow God's Call to wherever it leads.

To be good stewards of our environment and natural resources. May we learn to be good a conservation.

God we lift up these our prayers to you and ask in the name of your Son Jesus. Amen.

A Prayer attributed to St. Francis
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or
weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who
sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless
the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the
joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake
we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.

Lord, you now have set your servant free *
to go in peace as you have promised;
For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, *
whom you have prepared for all the world to see:

A Light to enlighten the nations, *
and the glory of your people Israel.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake
we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.

+++++++

Good Night Dear Family! I Love you! May you have a restful night! If you are traveling to and fro from Thanksgiving I pray for safe traveling mercies. I give God thanks for you this night always!

With love, prayers, and blessings

Sara