Dear Friends,
Advent Blessings!
Although I hadn’t thought it would play a role in my Advent preparations this year, I’ve once again been struck by the main theme of this season: Christ’s Kingship. From the color of the vestments to the selection of liturgical readings, prayers, and hymns, everything points to the fact that we await a newborn KING.
We await the birth of Jesus, the ruler of our hearts and minds, the Lord of our lives. We prepare to bring ourselves under his rule, to submit our whole life - everything we are, everything we have, everything we think, say, and do - to him.
As I preached about last weekend, we can grow in allegiance to Christ the King through the Church’s traditional penitential practices. Because Jesus’ reign is the rule of self-forgetful love, we submit ourselves more fully to his rule by growing in love of God, neighbor, and self. Do you remember which penitential practice lines up with which kind of love?
Okay, I’ll give you the first one. We grow in love of God by praying.
One of the ways to see prayer is the submission of my heart - of my will - to God. Yes, it can be as challenging as it sounds. Think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: Sweating blood, he prays, “Not my will, but yours be done!” This is one of the reasons why I love lying prostrate in front of the tabernacle: It is a prayer posture of total submission to God, a posture that promotes my submission to him in every aspect of my life.
To submit ourselves to God in prayer, we must make the time and give it to him. Start with five or ten minutes a day. Yes, every day. In those few minutes of silence, pour out your heart to Jesus. Give him what you’re thinking and feeling with real honesty (he knows the truth anyway).
How do you know when you’re doing it right? When we open our hearts and share our lives with God in prayer, he shares his life with us. His life at work in us brings about growth in love and joy and peace!
As always, if you’d like to talk this through just let me know. We actually have a handful of people who serve our parish as mentors in the life of prayer... and I’m always happy to make time for you!
Christ’s Peace,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ