5 ways to prepare for Advent
Start w/ this Sunday's Workshop '-)
#1: Make Resolutions for Personal and Family Prayer Time.
The Daily Office. This Sunday, Nov 24, I will be giving a workshop on the Daily Office after our potluck. Please be sure to attend this! We will have a list of readings and page numbers provided every Sunday in the Daily Office Book, or you can begin by printing out the prayers at prayer.covert.org. To learn how to pray the Daily Office, I recommend this video. You can also reach out with any questions on our Signal group. Our long term goal is to have Morning and Evening Prayer prayed every day in the Church. It may take us sometime to build up to this, but if you would be willing to lead prayer once a week in the church, please let me know.
Consider reading Jesus of Nazerth: The Infancy Narriatives. Truly one of the best books I read, but any spiritual reading that focuses on the incarnation and anticipation will be fruitful!
Guard silence by avoiding the news, radio, social media, TV, movies, shopping malls, restaurants and other places where you might encounter secular Christmas music and decorations.
#2: Hold off or Gradually Decorate for Christmas
There are no hard and fast rules for when to put up decorations. While some wait until Dec 24 to put up any deocrations you might also consider:
- Putting up greenery on the Feast of St. Nicholas on Dec 6
- Put up lights on the Feast of St. Lucy on Dec 13,
- A few more decorations on Gaudete Sunday
- But wait until sundown on Christmas Eve to put out the Nativity Scene, Christmas ornaments and other decorations.
#3: Make & Light an Advent Wreath
At 1:30 pm on the First Sunday of Advent, December 1, we will be hosting an Advent Wreath Making workshop.
- Suggested donation of $10 for the wreath & candles
- If you have greens you can bring from your yard, donations of greens would be very welcome!
- Wreaths will be blessed at the conclusion of the workshop.
- Print these or other prayers and pray them every evening at home around or before dinner time!
#4: Start Off Your Tree as a Jesse Tree!
If you are getting a real tree and worried all the trees will be gone if you wait too long, then go ahead and get your tree right before Dec 1, but start of the tree as a Jesse Tree. Each day put a new "Salvation History" ornament on your tree. As suggested above, add lights on the Feast of St. Lucy on Dec 13, and Christmas ornaments after sundown on Christmas Eve. In the resource below, you can find Jesse Tree ornaments you can make yourself, or you can purchase some (here is a set made by Catholic Families).
#5: Learn and Sing Advent Hymns
These hymns of "expectation" have a surreal beauty that will help prepare your heart for the coming of Christ in Christmas.
27 Advent Hymns - YouTube Playlist!
Other Advent customs.
Plan times to take part in these traditions so that they become a part of the fabric of your life, and the lives of those entrusted to you! I recommend the website below for beautiful patrimonial resources. Click on the image below to go to the website.
Also check out this great series of short videos by Catholic kids for Catholic kids for every day of Advent. They also have many printed resources available on their website:
