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WRAPPING UP ADVENT.
Sunday Rice and Stew
(Catholic Catechism)
Fourth Sunday Of Advent
For the past three weeks the holy mother church has been preparing for the coming of Christ through prayers, mortification and penance.
One may wonder why we pass through these stages and yet not see the messiah physically on Christmas day.
As we enter the last week of advent, the mother church calls us to put our best to receive Christ.
We are called to do our final preparation for the coming king.
When we do this faithfully, we will feel the Joy of Christmas.
HOW DO WE WRAP UP THE ADVENT?
A story was told of a man who had four children whom he left with their mother while he Journey to a faraway land in search of greener pasture.
Before traveling, he told his family that He will come at a fixed date whether he is successful or not.
On the appointed date, this man did not show up after his family prepared their home with many flowers, paint the walls and invited friends to come for this grand visitation.
This action made the man’s family and others disappoint.
After two years the man showed up and met the family members unprepared for his coming and the man was disappointed how they lost hope in his coming so quickly.
Many of us reading this now have prepared for many Advents and will still prepare for more, yet will never meet Christ physically on Christmas day as expected.
This should not make us disappointed or loss hope and go back to our former way of life because the season of Advent calls us to order just like the Lenten season to prepare for Christ at any time, he comes to meet us.
The story above will be the case with some of us if we don’t prepare for Christ coming within this advent properly.
One may ask how do we prepare for Christ coming for Christmas?
From the above story, we can learn how to prepare for Christmas through the following:
Prayer
By prayer we are meant to always seek the face of God in good times and bad too.
Many people join different Novena prayers during the advent season for safety and protection while they travel for Christmas, and after they return the mindset of prayer will be lost.
The joy of advent is to always be in the place of prayer with Christ during and after the season.
Christ wants us to always wait for him with our knees and hands lifted high at the place of prayer.
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The Advent season calls us to be more prayerful and consistent in it, if we must meet Christ at his coming.
Love of neighbors
One Can not take the place of love in the preparation of Christmas.
During this season, we are called to show love to the less privilege and those who are not financially buoyant.
We are called to share our gifts with one another. To visit the orphanages, the sick and the prisoners.
The joy of Advent is to put smiles on the face of our neighbors especially those we know we are better than them.
From experience, I have discovered that the only way one can be happy and live peacefully is to make our neighbors happy too.
This season calls us to be charitable, to give freely and to be generous with whatever God has given us.
When we help the poor and needy around us, then we can feel the Joy of Advent before the Joy of Christmas.
Waiting in Hope
Using the story above, we see that the man’s wife, children and friends losing hope in his coming since he failed to arrive at the appointed date.
The Joy of advent is not just to prepare for 25th December but for us to also wait in hope for Christ glorious coming.
If we must wait, we should not be like the people in the story above who where not patience rather we should be like people who believed that Christ will come to our heart Spiritually then met us physically at a later date.
If we want to feel the Joy of advent, we are not to involve ourselves in immoral lifestyle, drunkenness, fighting, quarreling, keeping malice and lying. We are to keep ourselves holy and worth of meeting Christ at his coming.
Conclusion
For one to feel the presence of Christ during this Christmas which we are entering in a few days time, one needs to
1. Be at peace with his/her self and also with his/her neighbors.
Remembering the words of Christ at the sermon on the mount in Mathew 5:8 where he tells us clearly that only the pure in heart will see God.
2. Waiting is one thing you can use to test human beings and they are bound to fail because it’s very difficult, it’s a test of patience.
If we wait in hope, we will feel the love of Christmas because Christ will meet us when we are ready for him.
3. The life we live at this point in time will determine whether we are actually waiting for Christ or not. We are called to leave lives worthy of our Christian calling.
The joy of Advent is to be generous to those around us by putting smile on their faces. This can only be done by been Charitable and caring.
May God bless you Dearest and increase your Complete your Advent Joy with a Christmas Joy. Amen.
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Amen! Thank you Padre 🙏 more grace