I named our sunroom lights by their cardinal directions, not expecting political commentary gems like this one when routines don’t work as expected.
Are you in organizational leadership in any capacity? I’d love some advice.
What helps you:
- Make sure you personally spend your best time and energy on things that matter most. (Daily and weekly.)
- Keep track of the goals, growth, and needs of people you most directly oversee.
Advent is about preparation for judgement, and that is actually a good thing.
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.
First Week of Advent
Advent as preparation for judgement.
What is the theme of each week of Advent? and What do each of the Advent candles represent? are the sort of questions that illicit a wide range of answers.
It is probably most common today for the themes of Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy to be linked to each of the four weeks of Advent. An older tradition asks us to focus on the four last things during this season: death, judgement, heaven, and hell. Still others would have us focus first on the Old Testament people of God, then the Old Testament Prophets, then John the Baptist, and then finally on Mary.
On first glance it is hard to find a common link between these various approaches to Advent. But I think you can see how each of these themes are in some way centered around one or more of the three advents of Jesus.
Throughout Rhythms of Habit we will follow the lead of the Book of Common Prayer in suggesting themes of each week of a particular season. More specifically, we will take our themes from the Collects (prayers) for each Holy Day and Holy Season, as well as their assigned Gospel readings.
On each of the Sundays of Advent, I will share the text of the Gospel passage and the Collect for the week, along with a few comments about how these themes can help us faithfully approach each week of Advent.
If you are theme-less this Advent, use those provided by the Book of Common Prayer as your guide. If you already have a theme for each week provided by your church, dive head-first into those themes and use the Rhythms of Habit emails as helpful supplements along the way!
Keep reading below for the First Week of Advent theme and reflection.
The First Week of Advent: Preparation for Judgment
As you read the Gospel passage and Collect below, it is worth taking a moment to consider a few things. I have also found it helpful to pray the Collect below each day of the first week of Advent.
Judgement is a good thing. In the end, we want all things to be set right. We feel this sense most strongly when we have been wronged. The problem is that we, too, often find ourselves in the wrong.
You will stand before Jesus, and see him face to face. In God’s mercy, we might just enjoy that encounter.
Preparation for that Day involves God’s gift of grace in our lives, followed by our own effort. When we emphasize one of these things at the expense of the other we do ourselves a disservice.
Gospel Reading: Matthew 24:36-44
Jesus said to the disciples, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
Collect for the First Sunday of Advent
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
An under-appreciated mark of a truly great sports commentator: knowing when to say nothing.
Messi scored, and there was a 45 second period of commentary silence followed by a subtle, “It had to be him.”
Advent is coming. Time to set some intentions for this Holy New Year.
Advent is Coming: Set your Intentions
A Holy New Year
The Church Year begins afresh tomorrow with the First Sunday of Advent!
Some of you recently began intentionally following the Church Calendar and are looking for ways to be more formally shaped by this ancient practice. Others of you have followed the calendar for years, and have a fairly seasoned set of traditions for each major season.
Regardless of where you are on your journey with the Church Calendar, Advent offers not just an opportunity to prepare for the season of Christmas, but a fresh start—a new year—of Christian discipleship.
Mark your Intentions
Whether you are preparing to celebrate a Holy Day or a Holy Season, taking a few moments to set specific intentions ahead of time will help you get the most out of the Church Calendar. These intentions are a series of things you intend to do throughout the upcoming season. They can be things you start, things you stop, or things you intend to change.
Sometimes they are specifically seasonal in nature: I am not going to eat meat on Fridays throughout Lent. Other times intentions for a specific season can be meant as a way of introducing a more permanent practice to your life: starting in Advent—and hopefully continuing for the rest of my days—I am going to read at least a chapter of Scripture every single day. When possible, it makes sense to align the intentions with the general theme or purpose of the season itself.
Whatever your intentions and however many you choose to adopt for this season of Advent, keep reading below for a few tips about intentions in general, as well as a broad overview of the season aimed at helping you craft a few meaningful practices for the next four weeks.
Advent: Jesus is coming
The word advent comes from the latin word for “arrival’”, and is a season of marking the three arrivals of Jesus:
His First Advent (The Incarnation)
His Advent in our lives (our own conversion)
His Second Advent (at the end/beginning of all things)
Any intention that helps you reflect upon, recognize, and prepare for any of these Advents is a good one for this season! You can aim to have an intention for each of these three Advents, or just choose one to focus on this year.
Penitence and Anticipation
The fact that Jesus is coming is truly good news, but it should still inspire a sense of awe and holy fear within us. How do we feel moments before hosting someone important into our homes? What emotions run through our hearts when an unexpected visitor catches us unprepared? If Jesus walked up to you right now in this very moment, what would you experience?
The reality is that we are all not entirely prepared to meet our maker. The season of Advent is a microcosm of our entire lives in the sense that it is a period of time that helps make us more prepared to see Jesus face to face.
The entire Church Calendar is a cycle of Fasts and Feasts: seasons of reflection, preparation, and repentance followed by seasons of celebration and feasting.
Advent is one of the fasting seasons. Its liturgical color (purple) is the same as that of Lent. It is a moment to anticipate the arrival of our Savior in part by reflecting on our own need for a savior.
The intentions you make during a fasting season will look different from those you make during a feast. In that sense, it might be appropriate for one of your intentions to involve some sort of meaningful fast throughout this season. (I would at least recommend against intentions that include indulging. But don’t worry - feasts always follow fasts, and Christmas is coming!)
Tips for your Intentions
Write them down, preferably somewhere you will see regularly.
Share them with your family and friends.
Though there is a place for the occasional dramatic intention aimed at shocking your system, I would recommend that most of your intentions most of the time be realistic and achievable.
Rhythms of Habit this Advent
Over the next four weeks, you can expect Sunday reflections on the theme of each week of Advent, plus a few special emails about specific Holy Days found within this season.
Oh no. It has happened. I tried to prevent it by asking reason to temper my expectations.
But mere hours before kickoff …
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN.
USA is taking home the trophy.*
*or advancing to the Round of 16 and remaining competitive in their first knockout match.
I just finished reading Pillars of the Earth. It was published when I was four years old, but seems to have been written for me to read at this exact age (37).
Great books tend to feel like that, don’t they?
An unusally free Saturday means that I had a chance to make some good progress on the playhouse.
