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The Advent season offers us an opportunity to meet Christ in a transformative way so he can fill the valleys in our souls and straighten our path to salvation.
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“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” -Isaiah 11:1-2

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Please pray for me as I join Fr. Mike Schmitz, Sister Miriam, and other Catholic speakers at the FOCUS SLS Conference. Please pray that the Lord guides our words as we speak to thousands of Catholics and Christian young adults, and that the Holy Spirit guides their hearts into a deeper union with him.

Resources
FOCUS SLS 2020 Conference
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Why does Matthew start his Gospel with a genealogy? If you look at it from the point of view of a first century Jew, it’s completely captivating. These names reveal a lot about the history of God’s chosen people, and builds up to reveal the identity of the new king and Emmanuel, Jesus.

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“Jesus is Christ the King and Emmanuel, God with us.”

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Please share any traditions that help you celebrate Christmas as a Catholic with Dr. Sri at info@edwardsri.com so that he can include them in next week’s episode!
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What God did in Mary in an instant, he wants to do in you throughout a lifetime. Mary is an icon of God’s plan for your holiness. _

Why would God preserve Mary from sin?

• It wasn’t for her own sake that God preserved Mary from sin! The Immaculate Conception of Mary is in fact all about Jesus. This dogma reveals that Jesus is no ordinary child—he’s the all holy, eternal Son of God.
• Mary is like the ark of the covenant, carrying the almighty holy presence of God. In the Old Testament, Jews build the Ark of the Covenant with the best of materials, the purest of gold. It’s most fitting that the God of the universe would choose to dwell in the purest of human vessels—a woman without sin.

*What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Your Spiritual Life? *

• Everything about Mary shows us what God wants to do in our lives. Mary is full of grace, and God wants to fill us each with grace, too.
• What God wants to do in each of us over time, he did in Mary in an instant. Mary is an icon reminding us of God’s plan for our own holiness.

Two Ways to Seek Grace Alongside Mary

1. Think about a specific sin in your life that you’re really struggling with, and turn to Mary. Say a Hail Mary, and ask her for her help in conquering that sin. “You who are full of grace, pray for me in this weakness.”
2. Reflect on Mary’s journey to visit Elizabeth (Luke 1:39) Imitate her “going in haste” to serve Elizabeth and be in communion with her as they rejoice together in God’s plan. This week, “go in haste” to visit Jesus in the chapel, and “go in haste” to the people who matter most in your life. ** The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe** On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, remember to ask Our Lady’s intercession to bring about a true culture of life in the midst of this culture of death.

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*_Snippet from the Show *
People who are truly alive in the Catholic faith shape their entire lives with the Gospel. This next four weeks, let’s shape our homes, shape the minds of our children--shape everything we do around the joyful anticipation of this holy Advent season._

*Advent Wreath: *
Ours is a circle of evergreen branches surrounding four candles (four violet, one pink) representing the four weeks of Advent.
Bless your Advent wreath with this special liturgical blessing
Put it on your dinner table (or nearby), and light it each night leading up to Christmas with your children or grandchildren.

*Advent Prayers During Dinner *
During dinner, pray a short Advent prayer or sing an Advent hymn with your family.
O God, Who gladdens us by the annual expectation of our Redemption, grant that we, who now receive with joy Your only-begotten Son as our Redeemer, may behold him without fear when He comes as our judge.

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the ways of Your Only begotten Son, that we may attain to serve You with purified minds, through His Advent. Who with you lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.

The Empty Manger
Place an empty manger in a special place in your home. Have your family members place a piece of straw in the manger every time they do a kind deed or make a sacrifice. This symbolizes their effort to prepare a special place in their hearts for the baby Jesus.

“Advent Angels”
Randomly assign your family members as secret “Advent angels” to each other. The goal is for each person to perform acts of kindness and service for the person to whom they’ve been assigned.

*Make a Jesse Tree *
The tradition of the Jesse tree comes from the passage in Isaiah:

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.”
The symbols hung on the Jesse tree tell the story of salvation history and lead up to the birth of Christ at Christmas

Dr. Sri’s “Advent Cards:
Retell the story of salvation history with simple illustrations

Bless Your Christmas Tree (and Recall the Tradition's Historical Roots)
If possible, wait to put it up later, like the original tradition of the Christmas Tree (symbolized the tree of Adam on Christmas Eve, was decorated with Candles on Christmas to symbolize Christ the light of the world)
Special blessing of a Christmas Tree

*Celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas *
Have your children put their shoes by the fireplace or by their bedroom door. While they are sleeping, put little surprises in their shoes (saint cards, gold chocolate coins, a few pennies)
Teach your children about the life of this great saint. A great way to do this is through the animated movie Nicholas: the Boy Who Became Santa

Celebrate Las Posadas
Read Tomie dePaola’s book The Night of Las Posadas

Gather friends and neighbors to organize a night of Las Posadas in your community.
Children dressed in nativity costumes go from house to house asking for lodging but are refused until they reach the final house, whenthey are welcomed into the “inn,” where they have a party with food and drink

** Listen to Advent Music Instead of Christmas Music**
Follow the Church’s lead--the Church does not sing Christmas hymns until the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass.

Dom Gueranger: “The Church also, during Advent … suppresses the angelic canticle, Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra paz hominibus bonae voluntatis; for this glorious song was sung at Bethlehem over the crib of the divine Babe; the tongues of the angels are not loosened yet; the Virgin has not yet brought forth her divine Treasure; it is not yet time to sing. It is not even true to say, ‘Glory be to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will.’”

*Some suggestions: *
Advent of Ephesus by the Benedictines of Mary
Advent Promise by Roger Wilcock & The London Fox Players
The Advent of Christmas by Matt Maher
Handel's Messiah

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Dr. Edward Sri explains how this Advent, the Lord has special graces in store for you, if only you make space for him in your life.

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“Make room for the Divine infant, for he desires to grow within your soul.” -Dom Prosper Louis Pascal Guéranger

**Why four weeks of Advent?
**Recalls the four thousand years of Biblical history. Advent walks us through that biblical story. We’re entering into Israel’s longing for the messiah—into humanity’s yearning for a savior. That’s what the season is all about.

**Why So Much Purple During Advent?
**Advent is a penitential season, a time we do some acts of penance. In the early Church, it was almost treated as if it were another lent. It included forty days of fasting, from the feast of St. Martin through Christmas. In the ninth or tenth century, the Church eventually changed the fasting to abstinence.

*What Abbot Dom GuérangerSays about Advent
*
There are three different kinds of men:

1. Those who live saintly lives, living deeply in Jesus
2. Those who have completely rejected God
   
3. The last category is the largest: those of us who want friendship with Jesus but don’t live it out well. We sin and we get lukewarm. Dom Guéranger describes this group, writing, “Jesus is in them, but they are sick and weakly. Because they do not care to grow in his divine life. Their first love has become cold.”
   

Advent is for those of us who are in that final group..those of us who feel like we aren’t progressing in the spiritual life, or who are going backwards.
“Our Lord knocks at the door of our hearts. He comes to ask us if we have room for him, for he wishes to be born in our house.”
When we are so busy, we don’t hear him knocking.
“You who have had him within you, without knowing him, and have possessed him without relishing the sweetness of his presence, open your hearts to welcome him this time with more care and with more love.”
“Jesus repeats his visit of this year with an untiring tenderness. He has forgotten your past slights. He would make all things new.”
Maybe we’ve become slack in our spiritual life or in our relationships with others
This Advent is the time to start over: “Make room for the Divine infant, for he desires to grow in your soul.”

**
Practical Ideas to Make Room for Jesus **

1. Sacrifice: picture that the manger is your heart. It has a whole lot of stuff in it...your music, your entertainment, your money, your dreams, your obsessions. This advent, give up a little something to make room for the baby Jesus to be placed in that manger.
2. Make a gift to our Lord in this season: An extra devotion, some spiritual reading, act of service or kindness to someone in your home or workplace, extra time for prayer.
3. Make time for prayer each day in Advent: December is hard…ask yourself, how can I encounter God in the midst of all the expectations and pressure? Take a little time each day to close your eyes and talk to the Lord. You can tell him all the things you need to do, but that little space of extra care and attention for Jesus will allow him to make you new.

Resources
The Advent of Christ

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