Advent is a time of waiting, conversion and hope, which is so needed in these troubled times and which serves to prepare well to celebrate the best news: the birth of the Child Jesus.
In this note we offer you 5 tips from the Catholic Church to live Advent 2024 in the best possible way.
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1. Pray before the Advent Wreath and light the candles every week
The Advent Wreath, made up of green branches on which four candles are placed, one for each week of this liturgical time, is an important “symbol of Advent in Christian homes,” points out the Directory on popular piety and liturgypublished by the Vatican in 2002.
To light one of the four candles every week, if possible every Sunday, you can perform a family or personal prayer, taking into account that the lights of the crown remember “the various stages of the history of salvation before Christ.” and it is “a symbol of the prophetic light that illuminated the night of waiting, until the dawn of the Sun of justice.”
2. The celebration of the Immaculate Conception
The Vatican directory specifies the importance of the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Advent, and of celebrating the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, which in 2024 is marked by a call to pray for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua and for the first Mass in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, after its reopening the day before.
The Vatican text highlights that “the content of the feast of the most pure and spotless Conception of Mary, as a preparation (…) for the birth of Jesus, harmonizes well with some main themes of Advent”, such as the wait for the promised Messiah for God.
3. The feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe
The feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Empress of America, which in 2031 will celebrate 500 years of her apparitions, is also an important moment for Catholics.
This date, lived with intensity and hand in hand with the Mother of God, “greatly increases the willingness to receive the Savior” since the Morenita del Tepeyac “in America was the radiant Star that illuminated the announcement of Christ the Savior to the children of these towns”.
4. The Christmas Novena and the birth or manger
In many places in America, such as Colombia and Mexico, the Christmas Novena is an intense time of prayer to prepare even better for the birth of the Christ Child.
The novena, which can also be prayed as a family, personally or in community, is also an occasion to get closer to God and help others to do so.
A good place to pray the novena is before the birth, in which children can participate. Furthermore, “it becomes an occasion for family members to come into contact with the mystery of Christmas, and for them to recollect themselves in a moment of prayer or reading” of the Bible, specifically the passages of the birth of Jesus. .
5. Preparing for Christmas is not a “commercial operation”
The Vatican board highlights the importance of caring for “the values of Advent, threatened by the custom of turning the preparation for Christmas into a ‘commercial operation’”, which is the result of a consumerist society.
In Advent it is important to prepare the heart, especially with prayer, to receive the Lord, the protagonist of these special dates that unite families from all over the world.
a prayer
To conclude, we offer you a prayer to pray in the mornings of this Advent:
The earth is dressed in new light,
because the sun that has come from heaven
in the happy womb of the Virgin
He has clothed himself with his flesh.
Love made things new,
the Spirit has descended
and the shadow of him who is powerful
In the Virgin his light has turned on.
The earth now demands its fruit
and at weddings joy is announced,
the Lord who lived in heaven
He became flesh in the Virgin Mary.
Glory to God, the mighty Lord,
to his Son and Holy Spirit,
who in his grace and his love blessed us
He has destined us to his kingdom.
Amen
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.