Advent Prayer

Father in heaven, you came to earth in the person of your Son, Jesus Christ. As the coming of your Spirit upon Mary inspired her to welcome the One who is her child and her lord, so also open our eyes to the gift already given. Forgive us our restless searching for your presence according to our expectations. Direct our searching according to your gift. May we, like the star-led sages of old, be ever guided to the appointed meeting place in the Child of Bethlehem.

In him and by him, let us be found by you. With your apostle Paul we would put on the Lord Jesus Christ, wearing his humility as our robe of splendor. Forbid that we seek any glory that is not his. In his childhood, we become as little children. In his teaching, we are trained to delight you by our service. In his miracles, we are changed, like water into wine, our vain ambitions transformed into obedience to your call. In his suffering and death, we share in his victory over every wrong within us and without.

Fill, we pray you, our every moment with his threefold advent. As then he came and now he comes and will one day come again, awaken us to the then and now and one day of his presence in this present moment. As we put on the Lord Jesus Christ, may all our time be clothed by eternity until we find ourselves at last in the home you have prepared for seekers and searchers who, in our seeking and searching, were hopelessly lost. Give us, we pray, the grace to surrender to being found.

This we ask in the name above every name, the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Let it be.

~~Richard John Neuhaus

Neuhaus, Richard John. "Prayer." God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas. Ed. Greg Pennoyer and Gregory Wolfe. Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2007. 20.