This Sunday – Dec. 10th – is the Second Sunday of Advent. This Sunday (and each day during Advent’s second week), we light two purple candles on our Advent wreaths (we can have an Advent wreath at home by getting one from one’s church, ordering one online, or finding one in local stores).
Participating in major liturgical seasons – Advent and Lent – is a great reminder to renew our faith lives! During Advent:
- We anticipate the anniversary of Christ’s birth at Christmas (hope)
- We recognize in the four candles of the Advent wreath the topics of hope, peace, joy, love
- Reflect on deepening our faith and put this into practice in our lives. The four topics associated with the Advent wreath candles – hope, peace, joy, and love – are great topics to cultivate. We receive these from a relationship with Christ (a relationship cultivated in prayer!); we learn to radiate these to the people we encounter.
- Engage in penance-charity-prayer
- Engage more actively (more often, with more reflection) in church services and church activities
- Consider how to be more caring to the people in our lives
Looking for ways to renew your life of faith? Here are a few tips:
- Participate in acts of charity, prayer, and penitential reflection of how we can become better people (I’m currently asking God to improve an aspect of my life in which I’m seeing I need to become a better person). In prayer, focus particularly on hope, peace, joy, and love.
- An printable pdf copy of our Advent calendar – with daily Advent reflections – is still available at A Parish Catechist’s Advent portal.
- Looking for reading material to help renew your faith this Advent? Check out our list of our favorite faith books on the A Parish Catechist website.
Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a “Content Creator/Individual” member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).
