Getting Ready to Pray                     

Advent has been our preparing-time for many things. Our prayer now is about our being open, honest about our size, and delighted. These few days before our Eucharistic celebration of his birth, we can pray with the openness of the empty. Mary’s womb, a lowly stable, a gloomy world, all speak of longing and readiness.

Some Thoughts 

We can pray with the deep desires we have to see friends and family again. That is a great joy and prayer, just desiring union which God’s love labors to bring to this world. We can pray with all the stories of how the “little” becomes so much. The “littlest star,” the “littlest tree,” the “littlest snowflake” and even a laughed-at-reindeer, all speak of how God blesses our lowly condition and raises us all to the dignity of God’s family.

We can pray with the delight of our being children who love to receive gifts. It is really much better to receive than give and so we can pray with all the cards, calls, greetings, and wrapped gifts which symbolize how God, in Christ, has come, and does continue to come through the gifts of our lives.

We can pray with the delight of God for us as parents delight in their children. The kids are not perfect, but made loveable by the love of mom and dad. There is division in our human family and in our personal families as well. There is much here about which to pray, wonder and wait. He has come, “to claim for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.” We can pray with the good things we are urged to do, these days of giving him new birth in our stables.