Watching and Waiting
Posted by Sherry Antonetti in Faith on Thursday, December 17, 2009 6:00 AM
We have only a week to wait for Christmas.
What are we doing to carve out that quiet place in our spiritual darkness where Christ is welcome? How can we break through the chaos and the clutter and the noise of our lives to receive the peace that is not of this world?
Even as we prepare to enter the final week of Advent, it isn’t too late to start an Advent jar, with prayers and suggested activities for each day.
To make an Advent Jar, all you need is a jar, box or bowl with a lid, index cards, and a little inspiration. Count up all the days left until Christmas. Write on each index card, an activity or prayer or task that is designed by its nature to
1) Call the family to pray
2) Call the family to play
or
3) Call the family to serve
Every day, someone opens the jar and takes out a slip and reads it aloud to the family. The goal is to over time, do all these things taken out of the jar, and to write about what happened as a result on the back, giving one 28 slips of memories if done from the first Sunday forward.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
1) Pray a family Rosary
2) Set up the nativity set
3) Have a clearing out session where clothes and toys are donated to a local shelter
4) Call to arrange volunteer time at a local charity of your choice
5) Have a family game night
6) Deliver luminaries to family and friends
7) Bake cookies together
8) Watch Christmas movies
9) Read the daily readings aloud at the table
10) Receive the sacrament of Reconciliation
11) Read Christmas books aloud as a family
12) Go caroling
13) Go outside to look at the heavens and contemplating what the Shepherds and Kings saw
14) Pray as a family for each member of the family
15) Go to an extra Mass
Making the larger world ready involves allowing ourselves to trust that God has a plan, that plan is infinitely good, and that He wants us to willingly participate.
So this year in addition to finding time for shopping and hunting for all the gifts, hunt also for hearts and give the gift of time.
Invite people to visit you, not because the house is Martha Stewart ready, but because your home is Mary, Joseph and Jesus ready.
Make your home and family a stable for the Holy Family—where everything is empty and simple but open to receiving Jesus.
Now that we’ve gotten started, why not make your own list—and continue your new family tradition throughout the Christmas season?
Blessed Advent!
— Sherry Antonetti is a fortunate spouse, freelance writer and a full time mother to nine sources of inspiration, laughs, and a lot of laundry.
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