I was thinking about that song “The Twelve Days of Christmas and decided to check out the readings for the daily liturgies on the twelve days before Christmas concerning the readings for the daily liturgies. Perhaps it would be helpful for prayer if we consider a phrase from each day’s readings.

December 13, from 1Thessalonians 5:16-24. Test everything; retain what is good. 
That is really good advice, especially with all the dangers lurking today. The Holy Spirit is a faithful aid with discernment. Call on the Spirit.

December 14, from Matthew 21:23-27. “By what authority are you doing these things.”
The chief priests and elders are questioning Jesus. We know Jesus acts with heavenly authority, and that is the best guarantee available. How blessed are we to have God’s love in the person of Jesus!

December 15, from Matthew 21:28-32. “Which of the two did his father’s will?”
Consider obedience in today’s world. It is so easy to rationalize our sins, to make little excuses for sinning. We can pray for more faithfulness to doing God’s will in our everyday lives.

December 16, from Isaiah 45:6c-8,18, 21c-25. Turn to me and be safe.
What an invitation! That should be our first reaction whenever we are challenged or threatened. As we have heard many times, God is always waiting to save us.

December 17, from Matthew 1:1-17. We are given the genealogy of Jesus. How are we doing with praying for our families? While some of our family members may not follow in our spiritual or religious observances, we pray for blessings and wisdom for them. Our loving example can be visual prayers for their increase in faith. 

December 18, from Matthew 1:18-25. They shall name him Emmanuel, which means God with us. 
We are assured of the Divine Presence, even when we feel most alone and dismayed. This child’s name tells us who he is right from the start of his earthy conception. What a wonderful name!

Years ago, when our daughter and her family lived in the duplex apartment next door to us, my three grandkids would pop in to visit unannounced. One day, the 10-year old made an entrance and found me sitting on my couch in silence. I was not reading or working on a craft or watching television or even listening to a radio. Mandy was concerned. Was everything all right? Little Miss Busy Person could not figure out how I could be sitting there in silence. Of course, I reassured her that I was fine and just collecting my thoughts and enjoying the quiet.

At least once a year, I try to attend a silent weekend retreat at a retreat house in Massachusetts. There are inspirational sessions each day led by the retreat presenters, but for the rest of the time the retreatants do not intermingle or socialize. We pray and talk to God, read, and take peaceful walks around the lovely grounds. We take time to rest and refresh.

A long time ago, I went on a six-day silent retreat. That was really a shock to my active life. I had to get used to not seeking eye contact or exchanging friendly greetings with other retreatants I would pass in the hallways or at meals. However, I visited the reservation chapels many times, I read my Bible, I prayed, I journaled, I felt the closeness of the Lord in a very comforting way. He spoke to me in marriage images. He put happiness in my heart. He filled my silence. 

So today I am touting the praises of occasional times of silence. Silence is almost counter-cultural during these days of hi-tech electronics and constant media bombardment. We are a very audibly-informed society. We might need to enforce radio silence—-like a submarine—and take a dive into quiet for a little while.

God of power and mercy,
Open our hearts in welcome.
Remove the things that hinder us from
receiving Christ with joy
so that we may share his wisdom and
become one with him in glory
for he lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit,
now and forever. Amen.

Adapted from Waiting With Joy, Year B: Weekly Reflections on the Sunday Readings, one of RENEW International's Advent resources for small group, individual or family prayer and reflection.

Like just about everything this year, the season of Advent will be different in a number of ways. I am considering four important words we will see in sacred scripture, reflection pieces, and other spiritual offerings: awake, prepare, rejoice, and behold. Often the first word in one of the Sunday readings during Advent, each one may grab our attention as if in boldface type—and that is a good thing! 

Awake. Pay attention! We have had to be so alert and careful about avoiding the COVID virus contagion that we are weary. However, this Awake we are seeing is a more positive encouragement. Wake up and hear the wonderful news: the best is yet to come! Sure, we have to watch out to avoid anything that will make us too content in our earthly comfort zones. Jesus came to save us and will come again at the end of time. Be ready! Be joyful! It’s really good news!

Lord, send me gentle reminders to be vigilant,
to grasp more fully my responsibility to focus
on opportunities for goodness and positivity.
Teach me to celebrate that I am graced
with your message of salvation and am waiting
to see your awesome face in our kingdom of everlasting love. Amen.

Prepare. John the Baptist was very good at his job of preparing the way of the Lord. He did his work, and we can do ours. Regardless of the world situation, we can all be creative as we give witness, example, and encouragement to others—in mundane issues but, more importantly, in spiritual things. So many people are preparing their houses for Christmas with bright fancy decorations, but how much more important is the preparation we do to repent of our sins, to open the windows of our hearts to let the Holy Spirit decorate our lives with hope. 

I ask you, John the Baptist, to intercede for me
that I may shake off the shackles of complacency and habit
so as to make straight my path to the Lord and his to me.
Help me to convey the message of the truth of Christmas
in pure and simple ways.  Amen.

With so much instability in the world today, we have had to adjust to cope with the disruption of routines and ways of thinking. Unfortunately, we might be faced with adapting to compromises and battling temptations. I have heard that the devil is in the details, but it is just as true that the devil is in the derails—those times we get off track for one reason or another.

 As I thought about the possible temptations to sin, my categorizing brain reminded me that in the 1960s and 1970s there was a very popular singing group called the Temptations. They were not something to be avoided; their music and the way they did their choreography were very entertaining. Next, I looked at some of the names of this quintet’s famous recordings. So, without going into the lyrics specifically, there are song titles that seem fitting with today’s not-so-desirable temptations.

 One song was called Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today). I certainly see how that designation could apply to our poor world today. I told my husband I never thought before that I might envy the four astronauts that recently left the earth for six months away at the space station. Of course I was joking, but with so many openings and closings of schools, stores, and restaurants, it is easy to become a little cranky or short with people around us. We might be tempted to lose our patience and our temper. We might say things that are not so loving. We might indulge in a bit of self-pity. A good antidote is a few thoughts of gratitude, taken with a tall glass of water or a walk around the block.

Loving God,
You desire that we grow ever more deeply
in our relationship with you.
As we begin our Advent journey
waiting eagerly
for the coming of your Son, Jesus,
bless our prayer, our contemplation,
our sharing,
and our service to others. Amen.

Adapted from Waiting With Joy, Year B: Weekly Reflections on the Sunday Readings, one of RENEW International's Advent resources for small group, individual or family prayer and reflection.

According to reports in the media, people have begun decorating for the approaching holidays already. One woman who was interviewed said that it makes her kids feel better to see all the bright lights inside and outside her house. Some families have put up their Christmas trees even before Thanksgiving. A business advertised on television that it employs workers who will decorate your whole front yard with tons of lights and electronic trimmings. Granted, it has been a dark year of pandemic and controversy, so we do need to lighten up.

Whether we are planning a big family meal on Thanksgiving or a small gathering, most likely the turkey will be trimmed with savory basting and spices. We may even dress to decorate ourselves a little fancier during holiday celebrations or at least wear a special gaudy Christmas sweater in December.

 As we enhance the walls of our homes and our shrubbery, our luscious turkeys and desserts, and our own physical bodies, we could lose touch with the fact that we have to have positive foundations under the trimmings. If our fuses blow, our bushes collapse, our fowl is really foul-tasting, or our appearance is disheveled, our original intentions may not realize the desired results.

 We should try to remember, for example, that while lights brighten up the early darkness outside and the pine trees in our living rooms, the true Light in our world all year long is Jesus, who shows us the way out of the darkness of sin and evil. In the incident described in John 8:12, the Pharisees were with Jesus:

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness
but will have the light of life.”    

As we get close to Thanksgiving, we hear on the media about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, which will be a very different even this year because of the COVID pandemic. 

That parade, as well as preparations for Christmas, can bring to mind pleasant holiday memories. To sit back and relax as the memory pictures cavort in procession before our mind’s eye can make us very sentimental and grateful. Of course, we can become nostalgic and even sad if we consider our losses and some of the virus-triggered changes in our more recent history. 

So what can we do to keep ourselves peaceful and open to holiday joy? I think it requires a conscious effort to remain positive as so much negativity parades around us. I like to think of other parades in my life. 

When I was a little girl, my mother used to take me to see the local Independence Day parade. My uncle was a member of the fire police, so I would watch for him to march past where I was standing. When I saw him coming and heard the band playing, I would start mischievously dancing around—-just off the curb and into the street—only to be quickly pulled back by my mother. It was a happy dance and is a happy recollection. 

When I was in fifth grade, I was marching with my class in a procession honoring our Blessed Mother. I liked being first in line, and so I was that day. However, I got distracted and did not notice that Mother Mary Edith, our teacher and procession leader, had stopped for some reason. Well, I just kept walking and walked right into her. No big deal, but I was a very embarrassed 10-year-old. Now it makes me smile.

God of abundance
you challenge us to give food to those who hunger:
Help me to feed those
who go without food and drink.

So many of us are counting things every day. We may have been cautioned to count to 10 before losing our temper. We have fitness trackers so we can count our steps; some of us count our daily food calorie intake; lately, we have been counting ballots in important elections. We can get caught up in all the bad news about the economy or the pandemic and have to remind ourselves to count our blessings at the end of each day.

 In the Bible, there are so many examples of tabulating countable things such as peoples, tribes, nations, and blessings. In Genesis 15:5-6, for example, God talks with Abram about counting:

He brought him outside and said,
“Look toward heaven and count the stars,
if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “
So shall your descendants be.”

Jesus certainly knew about counting. Take, for example, the conversation he had with Peter in Matthew 18:21-22:

Then Peter came and said to him,
“Lord, if another member of the church sins against me,
how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?
Jesus said  to him, “Not seven times,
but I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

We are made aware in Mark’s Gospel (6:30-44) about Jesus’ feeding five thousand followers using only five loaves of bread and two fish.

And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. (Vs 42-43)

So obviously, someone was counting people, loaves, fish, and baskets.

As a little child going to confession, I was taught to tally up my sins and report my list of infractions to the priest. How many times—count ’em—did I tell a lie? How many times did I disobey my mother? It was possible to picture God sitting up above with a big ledger, keeping a running list of my sins. As I grew up, I learned that image of God was incorrect. Fortunately, we can find forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation after confessing more of our sinful tendencies or habits, and not itemized, numbered lists. How blessed we are, as we are reminded in the Lamb of God prayer—the Agnus Dei—we say at every Mass, that Jesus takes away the sins of the world. When I look around, it is overwhelming to try to imagine how to count how many sins there are and have been, over the centuries, in the world! Thank you, Jesus! And thank you, forgiving, merciful Father!