Prayers for Advent, 2023

Sunday, 4 Advent, December 24, 2023

God of perpetual advents, your comings are ever fresh even as we trace the grooves of how you have come and been known in our past; as we create liturgical labyrinths of former paths to knowing you, let fresh insights of your coming anew be known.  Amen.

Saturday 3 Advent, December 23, 2023

God of the unpredictable, from obscurity Jesus became lionized as the Eternal Word, the All and in All, and the Glorified King above all; give us the eyes of faith to see the unpredictable goodness of Christ-likeness inhabit the peoples of the world.  Amen.

Friday in 3 Advent, December 22, 2023

Eternal Christ, we thank you that your life is conceived within us by the overshadowing of the eternal Spirit; help us not to limit your presence to a conceiving event and let our volitions participate with your continual growth within us to take us over with the work of love and justice through us.  Amen.

Thursday in 3 Advent, December 21, 2023

Gracious God of Hope, we await for what we already have in part, because the hope in us makes us expectant of more in love and justice for our world.  Amen.

Wednesday in 3 Advent, December 20, 2023

God, we are living and moving and having our becoming within the overall divine creative Becoming; let us not alight on any thing as final outcome but only as temporal occasions toward becoming surpassing persons toward more excellent future selves.  Amen.

Tuesday in 3 Advent, December 19, 2023

Christ, whose identity with Jesus in history we retrace in our season of Advent; we confess and tell the origin of our identity in the birth of Jesus whose story became worthy to tell in the aftermath of manifest post resurrection experiences of people who pondered why such things happened.  Let us know a continuity with the birth of Christ with new occasions of the sublime in us now.  Amen.

Monday in 3 Advent, December 18, 2023

God of the Song of Mary, the world awaits the casting down of the thrones of the tyrants and the lifting up of the lowly even while you have apparently left us with a responsibility to make such happen;  we ask for the end of those who abuse power and in greed control the vast proportion of the resources of the world to the neglect of the common good.  O God, defeat the greedy, we pray.  Amen.

Sunday, 3 Advent, December 17, 2023, Gaudete

God, you comprise the fullness of everything, and this fullness impinges upon us as an accessible joy; let us be lured by this accessible joy in the midst of the woes which confront us in the competition selfish egos in our world which often leaves us unhappy and disillusioned because we are not yet what we might be.  Amen.

Saturday in 2 Advent, December 16, 2023

God, who will always be the Always Already, in faith we know that we will reassess in different ways than how we interpret our current experience now; help us to cherish what appears good to us now and give us courage to bear what seems to be awful, knowing that future reconstitution of the traces of what has been will include all with expanding meanings colored by future outcomes.  Amen.

Friday in 2 Advent, December 15, 2023

God of All, we are often frustrated by such diversity in the world known poignantly when we encounter the newness of difference; give us the humility to know that we are but a small occasion of clusters within the Great All, and in this humility give us grace to have the wisdom of justice in living together.  Amen.

Thursday in 2 Advent, December 14, 2023

God, who tolerates everything, enlarge our hearts to embrace the diversity of people who want the conditions of justice and love in our lives, and let us never regard largesse of hearts to be a weakness.  Amen.

Wednesday in 2 Advent, December 13, 2023

God of everlasting time; let us seek the end of unjust conditions by bringing bad behaviors to the judgment of exposure followed by the transformation of wrongly used energy into the works of love and justice.  Amen.

Tuesday in 2 Advent, December 12, 2023

God of John the Baptist, let us like him be those voices who announce the good news about Christ, effacing ourselves behind the goodness of the Risen Christ who rises within us to help us achieve the love and justice that is needed in our world today.  Amen.

Monday in 2 Advent, December 11, 2023

God who gave us Christ as an example of what excellence can be in human appearance; help us not to misrepresent the excellence of Christ by identifying him with false triumphalism and disassociating him from the poorest of the poor and the most needy in our midst.  Amen.

Sunday, 2 Advent, December 10, 2023

God, who allows all conditions which are, we take comfort in the continuous sustaining of the world; give us the hope that believes the future will fulfill the past and that any particular moment of weal or woe does not stand alone in pride or regret after it has been relegated to being but amid a Greater Story.  Amen.

Saturday in 1 Advent, December 9, 2023

God, who sends prophets to let us know what is wrong; we thank you for not leaving with negative criticism regarding our failures as you show us what we can become in love and justice with the transformation of our life energies.  Amen.

Friday in 1 Advent, December 8, 2023

God, the higher power giving the grace of impulse control; we are inspired to set seasons of fasting to highlight the gross inequities in resource distribution throughout our world, so as to fast for employing more just distribution.  Spare us from making our fast serve but our selfish piety rather than taking from our excess to give to those who need more.  Amen.

Thursday in 1 Advent, December 7, 2023

Gracious God, give us the grace of higher power to fast, not to prove that we are religious, but to further healthful impulse control which in turn allows us to organize the resources of our lives to share with those in need.  Amen.

Wednesday in 1 Advent, December 6, 2023 (Nicholas of Myra)

Gracious Giving God, let the traditions which derive from Nicholas of Myra be foremost a care for the safety and well being of the children of the world in their having plenty of food, shelter, clothing, education, and caring mentors for their future success.  Amen.

Tuesday in 1 Advent, December 5, 2023

God who has empowered us in freedom, give us the courage to do want we can and keep us from expecting from you what we need to do ourselves; and let us commit the things outside of our strength and ability to your providence.  Amen.

Monday in 1 Advent, December 4, 2023

Great Giver of Goodness, you have provided so much for our enjoyment that we often linger such enjoyment into addictions  and over indulgence; restore us in the ability to fast for impulse control and for the sharing of our excess with those who need what is basic for their subsistence.  Amen.

Sunday, 1 Advent, December 3, 2023

God of Time, we have given you a calendar to invoke you into the times of our lives through a teaching curriculum so that we may ponder the manifold aspects of your appearances to us;  give us expectant hearts for your arrivals, even as we review your past epiphanies to us and to the blessed people of our heritage.  Amen.