Dear Friends,

Advent

The word “Advent” comes for the Latin adventus, “coming,” i.e. of Christ. The ecclesiastical season immediately before Christmas. Formally, as Great Lent, constituted a period of total fasting. It is still a time of preparation, moderate fasting, service, and prayer. In Armenian, Hisnag, the 50 days preceding Theophany (January 6).

Advent is the season when we should take time to think about the why of Christmas - why all the decorations, the preparation, the hustle and bustle? It should be a time to look within our hearts to see if there is anything that stands in the way of Jesus’ coming. We lament that the commercial world has taken over, but there is something we can do to restore the spiritual dimension of Advent and Christmas.

This season:

• Read Scripture
• Attend church
• Do more as a family
• Serve others, through church, charity and neighborhood

Pray the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi from the heart each day during this Advent season and your life will be transformed.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy.

Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
Not so much to be understood,
As to understand;
Not so much to be loved,
As to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we awaken to eternal life.
Amen.

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With prayers.
Hayr Simeon
November 25, 2007