The Meaning of the Advent Wreath

The Advent Wreath is a great tradition to implement in homes during the Advent Season. These prayers accompany the lighting of the Advent Wreath candles. The prayers take just a minute, but help us focus on dedicating ourselves to Christ during this season of preparation.

Obscure in origin it is believed that the Advent Wreath may have had its beginnings in the pagan fire wheel. In Christian symbolism the wheel or wreath stands for eternity. Its use is especially fitting during Advent the season of the anticipation of the coming of our Lord.

Children love the beauty of the simple traditional ceremony. Lighting candles in an Advent Wreath is a simple way to start a tradition of family worship in the home. Those who participate will cherish the experience all their lives. 

The Advent Wreath Ceremony

The ceremony is simple. It starts at the evening meal on the Saturday before the first Sunday in Advent with the blessing of the wreath. (The head of the household is the one designated to say the prayers following which various members of his family light the candles. If the group is not a family then a leader may be selected to say the prayers and others appointed to light the candles.)

For blessing the wreath the following prayer is suggested:

Father: O God, by whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth thy blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from Thee abundant graces. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then follows the prayer which is said before the evening meal each night of the first week in Advent. 

I.                   The First Week

Father: O Lord, stir up Thy might, we beg Thee, and come that by Thy protection we may deserve to be rescued from the threatening dangers of our sins and saved by Thy deliverance. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Each night the first purple candle is lighted by the youngest child of the household and is left burning during the meal. 

II.                The Second Week

Father: O Lord, stir up our hearts that we may prepare for Thy only begotten Son that through His coming we may be made worthy to serve Thee with pure minds through Christ our Lord. Amen. (Then the eldest child lights not only the first but a second purple candle. Both candles burn during the evening meal as before.)

III.             The Third Week

The joyful Sunday in Advent (known as Gaudete) is represented by rose (or pink) instead of the penitential purple color. Each night during the third week the mother of the family lights the pink as well as the two previously burned purple candles after the following prayer has been said.

Father: O Lord, we beg Thee incline Thy ear to our prayers and enlighten the darkness of our minds by the grace of Thy visitation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (The three candles are extinguished immediately following the meal.) 

IV.             The Fourth Week

The father of the household lights all four candles in proper sequence during the fourth week after repeating the following prayer.

Father: O Lord, stir up Thy power, we pray Thee, and come; and with great might help us, that with the help of Thy Grace, Thy merciful forgiveness may hasten what our sins impede. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (Candles can be replaced as necessary during a particular Advent Season without reblessing the wreath.)

After Advent : For the Christmas Season which follows immediately after Advent, candles and ribbons can be changed to white. If you wish, the wreath itself can be freshened with new greens and decorated festively for use during the holiday period. Lighting all four white candles to burn during the principal meal each day of the Christmas Season is a customary and appropriate practice.

Solemnity of Christ the King: "he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father when he has destroyed every sovereignty"

Archbishop Lori, in his remarks to our bishops gathered in Baltimore for their annual meeting this Fall, pointed out that the solemnity of Christ the King, which our Church celebrates on the last Sunday of October pre-1962 and this weekend in the ordinary form, originated in the struggles of the Church under totalitarianism in the 19th century, only about 70 years ago, and for that reason is very appropriate in our own day when our religious freedom is under attack.

Our bishops have been engaged for some time now in the fight for religious freedom on sveral fronts. The HHS mandate and the redefinition of marriage with attendant efforts to attack businesses and individuals who refuse to obey this legal perversion are just two of the effects of a general rejection of our right to declare Christ our King in action as well as in our beliefs.

The social kingship of Christ is non-negotiable. Our right to live our faith as witnesses in every aspect of our existence is not simply an adjunct to believing but is constitutive of believing itself. Christ is the King of the Universe precisely because He rose as God in our human flesh from the dead, establishing His absolute Lordship, which phrase is a redundancy made necessary by the lack of understanding so common today in regard to what this term means precisely.

"Lord" is title without qualification, denoting the one who demands our total fealty, allegiance, obedience and love without rival. Saint Paul used this term to describe Christ precisely because it was so well known in the Roman world to mean the complete obedience to Caesar and therefore served as an insulting provocation when used by the early Christians.

Efforts to secure and defend our religious liberty are essential because we cannot "be" Catholic without at the same time "doing" Catholic. Our proclamation of the Gospel to all of society is our mission as servants of the Kingdom of God.

Christ describes His kingship in the Gospel proclaimed at our Masses this weekend for this Solemnity:

"he will sit upon his glorious throne,
and all the nations will be assembled before him.
And he will separate them one from another,
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the king will say to those on his right,
'Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world"

His kingship includes His role as judge. May we be blessed to live in love and obedience to Him in His kingdom now so as to reign with Him forever in heaven.

Christ conquers, Christ rules, Christ reigns.
Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.

"Demas, enamored of the present world, deserted me": the grace of final perseverance

Saint Paul experienced and wrote about the reality which the Church is living through in the present age, where so many, enamored of various "lobbies" and pressure groups, abandon Christ and His Church. In 2 Timothy he responds to such unfaithfulness in this way: "At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it." Our faith is given that we might grow in virtues and among these what is called the grace of final perseverance. If we do not fall away from the life of the Church and from her teaching in faith and morals we can look forward to the eternal life of heaven. "The children of our holy mother the Church rightly hope for the grace of final perseverance and the recompense of God their Father for the good works accomplished with his grace in communion with Jesus. Keeping the same rule of life, believers share the 'blessed hope' of those whom the divine mercy gathers into the 'holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.'" (CCC 2016)

"Let no one deceive himself."

Let no one deceive himself.

If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age,

let him become a fool, so as to become wise.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God,

- 1 Cor 3:18-23 God's truth is his wisdom, which commands the whole created order and governs the world. God, who alone made heaven and earth, can alone impart true knowledge of every created thing in relation to himself. - CCC 216

"It is I; do not be afraid": consolation for the natural Christian state of persecution

"Lord, save me!” is the cry of the Christian who has stepped out in Faith as commanded by Christ but who upon encountering difficulty is afraid to continue the journey. This is the cry of Peter, who is sinking and left, as he thinks, to his own resources in the danger of the sea. But he is told to use a different standard, that of the Faith which in the human weakness we know as fear, he has momentarily forgotten. The command of the Lord, "It is I, do not be afraid", to Peter and to all of us is to recover ourselves, by the composure of Faith, thereby returning to the serenity of trust amid the violence of the world. This is the natural state of the supernatural Christian, that of persecution and sometimes of martyrdom, which we are in constant danger of forgetting and with it the Faith by which we are saved. And there is also the loving remonstrance as He pulls us up, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

17th Sunday: Living with the signs of giving all for the pearl of great price

Have you chosen to live for the Kingdom now? The Kingdom is the pearl of great price, the organizing principle of a life of Faith in Jesus Christ.

Without Christ there is no Kingdom, and without the Church there is no Christ.  If the Church is not in your life then the Kingdom which comes to us in the Person of Jesus Christ is not either.

The unaccompanied children currently being pushed over the border into the "promised land" of the United States in some cases by deadbeat parents are a lot like the situation in which some children find themselves in our Church today. Many children are "pushed" over the border into the Church, which is the beginning of the heavenly Kingdom on earth, by deadbeat parents who refuse to be engaged as witnesses of faith through the conduct of their own lives.

But a faith that is not good enough for the parents will not good enough for children because "like father, like son".

There is a widespread crisis in the call to the Kingdom: most kids who get Confirmed stop practicing Faith after Confirmation. By observation of parish life I can tell you which children those are going to be and why. If I do, are you going to do something about it?

Living for the Kingdom is done through signs because love and commitment are visible through the signs made evident by the choices which make up our lives.

Clothing on Sundays that suddenly on Confirmation Sunday is not good enough is not Sunday best. Sunday best remains Sunday best even after it becomes workday best; if the typical club and bar clothing that people use on a typical Sunday comes off on Confirmation Sunday then it proves the people who wear it know it’s not Sunday best.  So why do they tell Father it is?

Saturday vs Sunday? Why? Saturday available only when some reason beyond control prevents from attending on Sunday. Sundays are the celebration of the resurrection when we reaffirm faith in the empty tomb by coming to Mass for a real encounter with the One who conquered death and escaped the tomb, promising us the same. Saturdays for habitual convenience only teaches children that God is a nuisance that we must avoid and who must be made less burdensome in our lives.
 

Do we live on Sunday like it’s just another day of the week instead of Lord’s Day? Rest is commanded by God on Sundays in order to imitate Him and made possible by avoiding unnecessary shopping or servile work whenever possible

Faith formation for children is not ordering a product but one aspect of lived and saving Faith including Sunday worship. Pray for parents.

When parents take "time off" from Church when class is over during the summer they teach children Faith is something to outgrow like school.

Please pray for Catholic parents who impose spiritual poverty upon their children by failing to take them to Mass on Sunday.

Parents who think they get more out of life by taking shortcuts with God end up with children cutting God entirely out of life.

Stop making excuses to "Father" about why you cannot keep the Commandments; talk to God about it because it's you and Him on Judgment Day.

Christ does not say sell all you have for Kingdom but live as if you would. What are the signs which say the Kingdom is first in your life?

When the Kingdom is far more precious to us than a pearl for which we are willing to give up all we have our children will know it and follow our example.

16th Sunday "those who are just must be kind": let us teach the truth with compassion as evidence of our love

There is a judgment but, until then, good and evil co-exists in this world.

" ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

The results of the judgment will not be equal for all:

"The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."

But it should never be that we are like weeds. In Christ we are called to bear fruit that will last by learning the truth and teaching it without judgment and in compassion to others:

"Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear."

--  Mt 13:24-43\

"Christ, 'holy, innocent, and undefiled,' knew nothing of sin, but came only to expiate the sins of the people. The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal." All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners. In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time. Hence the Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ's salvation but still on the way to holiness:

The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live her life, her members are sanctified; if they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for those offenses, of which she has the power to free her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

-- CCC 827