Advent 2012 (Christmas Eve)
He who testifies to these things says: “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.
– Revelation 22:20-21
Advent 2012 (Fourth Sunday)
O sacred Lord of ancient Israel,
who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush,
who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain:
Come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.
– Kathleen Norris, God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas
Advent 2012 (Third Sunday)
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Advent 2012 (Second Friday)
“When God seems silent and our prayers go unanswered, the overwhelming temptation is to leave the story – to walk out of the desert and attempt to create a normal life. But when we persist in a spiritual vacuum, when we hang in there during ambiguity, we get to know God.”
– Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life
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Advent 2012 (Second Sunday)
Prayer to Welcome the Sabbath
Lord of Creation,
create in us a new rhythm of life
composed of hours that sustain rather than stress,
of days that deliver rather than destroy,
of time that tickles rather than tackles.
Lord of Liberation,
by the rhythm of your truth, set us free
from the bondage and baggage that break us,
from the Pharaohs and fellows who fail us,
from the plans and pursuits that prey upon us.
Lord of Resurrection,
may we be raised into the rhythm of your new life,
dead to deceitful calendars,
dead to fleeting friend requests,
dead to the empty peace of our accomplishments.
To our packed-full planners, we bid, “Peace!”
To our over-caffeinated consciences, we say, “Cease!”
To our suffocating selves, Lord, grant release.
Drowning in a sea of deadlines and death chimes,
we rest in you, our lifeline.
By your ever-restful grace,
allow us to enter your Sabbath rest
as your Sabbath rest enters into us.
In the name of our Creator,
our Liberator,
our Resurrection and Life,
we pray.
Amen.
– From Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
Advent 2012 (First Sunday)
A prayer for the first Sunday of Advent:
Father in heaven, you came to earth in the person of your Son, Jesus Christ. …
Fill, we pray you, our every moment with his threefold advent. As then he came and now he comes and will one day come again, awaken us to the then and now and one day of his presence in this present moment. As we put on the Lord Jesus Christ, may all our time be clothed by eternity until we find ourselves at last in the home you have prepared for seekers and searchers who, in our seeking and searching, were hopelessly lost. Give us, we pray, the grace to surrender to being found.
This we ask in the name above every name, the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen. Let it be.
– from a prayer by Richard John Neuhaus, God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas
Read Advent 2011 (Day 1) here.