A Soothing Advent Prayer: Doing the Ordinary, Extraordinarily Well!
With every start of the Advent season, people in the pews face a dilemma: to prepare for Christmas or listen to the preacher’s Advent message of prayer and reflection. For many people, Christmas comes quickly with the lists of presents for family and friends, guests to invite for Christmas dinner, parties to attend, and making grandma’s favorite delicious cookies.
Then the preacher adds the essential Advent preparation list with prayers and quiet time to ready ourselves spiritually for Christ’s coming. What usually gets short changed is the preacher’s spiritual preparation list adding guilt to the joyous feeling of Christmas cheer.
To avoid this dark cloud from hovering over our holiday spirit, I have a brilliant idea to share. St Francis de Sales asks that, we do the ordinary extraordinarily well. I thought that’s perfect for Advent. We can look over our ordinary daily activities during these four weeks and make them our preparation by during them all extraordinarily well.
We daily make our beds, take showers, and dress. Why not take extra minutes and make these moments prayers. For example, Cleanse me Lord from all that is not you! And clothe me Jesus with your love and mercy! Perhaps we hop in the car and face insurmountable traffic. We can either complain, get terribly impatient, or we can pray: Lord I can’t control this traffic jam, but with your help I can get through it!
If we take a bus, subway, or light-rail we may pass a homeless person holding a sign “Out of Work. Need help.” We can walk away or stop and hand over a donation without nit-picking about how he or she may spend it. Instead, you hear the Lord say, Whatever you do for the least, you do for me. And you offer it with a simple smile.
Later you face a sign that says: Right lane closed 1000 feet ahead. Instead of playing chicken with the car on the right you signal him to jump in front of you. And he lips Thank You. These are not big things. They are small things taking seconds to do, but always returning mounds of grace because we choose to do them. And with each deliberate action, God’s Kingdom rises.
Our ordinary present moments are filled with many little opportunities to offer praise to our God because we choose to do them. Francis De Sales says: “Great opportunities to praise God are seldom, but turning small acts into great acts of praise happen each present moment.”
This is why every first Sunday of the Advent Scriptures ask hearers to be watchful and alert! We are invited to slow down looking for all the little ways we can choose to do ordinary present moments extraordinarily well. When we do this, we may discover Christmas gifts of a peaceful mind, a joyful heart, and a spirit busting with goodwill.
O Come O Come Emmanuel, And Ransom Captive Israel!
Photo: Gerald Horgan
