Advent is Here! Beginning My Walk with the 40 Days of Seeking Him

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Yet again, time has flown by and the new liturgical year is here for the Church.  Today is the 1st Sunday of Advent as well as the feast day of St. Andrew.  At our parish, that meant a serious focus on Advent during Mass with a potluck meal afterwards to mark the feast day of our parish’s patron saint. (Some Catholics are beginning the Christmas Novena today as well.)

Advent is a time for us to draw inwards a bit and prepare our hearts for Christmas.  It can be seen as an exercise in patience when the secular world is all about Christmas at the moment at the same time we are to be penitent.  As a Catholic, it can be a challenge to spend more time in prayer and reading Scripture while being faced with holiday parties and treats that are the exact opposite of what I am striving to do.

Tonight, at dinner time, my family will light the first candle on the Advent wreath and I will pull out the Star Wars Advent Calendar they do not know is in the house.  I’ll spend some more time in prayer and reflection using Advent Devotionals I have in my home.  And, I will ruminate a bit about all the activities I can be doing this month to full discern which ones I really should allocate time for versus passing by.

For the past few years, I have co-hosted the 40 Days of Seeking Him meme for Advent and Lent with Trish from A House Upon a Rock.  I love the chance to not only share what I’m doing to grow closer in my relationship with Christ, but also seeing what other people are doing.   Trish will hopefully be joining us soon, but for now I wanted to get things started on time.  You can find the actual link up at the bottom of this post and every subsequent one I have done this year.

How are YOU working to seek God during the seasons of Advent and Christmas?

What does your family do to keep Christ in Christmas?

 

Join the 40 Days of Seeking Him Week One Link Up

If joining us on the 40 Days of Seeking Him meme, please link directly to your post.  Every week we will link up and share what we are doing, learning or how we celebrate the birth of our Lord. You are more than welcome to link up to more than one post each week if you’ve written multiple posts on the topic of Advent and growing closer to Christ.