Opportunities for Service Often Appear During Advent

Sometimes we are ready - as individuals, as a family, as a couple - to seek some opportunities to experience Advent with a different spirit. We are ready to have our hearts opened and engaged by doing some service for others. We know from past experience, or we've heard from others, that this is a very rewarding and grace-filled way to enter into Advent. It helps us to prepare for Christmas because we focus on how grateful we are and we enter into the spirit of sharing by allowing us to imitate our Savior who simply gave of his very self for us. And, it helps us get closer to the experience of the poor and needy of our world. We think about their needs and we do something - even if it is a small thing - to reach out.






 We could acknowledge our response to the fact that there are others who have so much less than we do, through no fault of their own other than their being born into different circumstances than our own. Some of us may have very little to give. We may be out of a job or without health care or struggling to make ends meet. And, even for us, there is a sense that we have more than many people on the face of the earth. Perhaps we have no money to give away, but we have time to give to help someone else. Getting started involves reflecting on what kind of service might be right for me and what it will mean.


Lord you came to enter our life journey completely and to become one with us. Thank you for your love and your mercy. Thank you for the many blessings you have bestowed upon me and my family. Please let this simple generosity today lift someone else's burdens. As I reflect upon the smallness of your coming, as a baby born in poverty, let this small practice of generosity today become a symbol for my desire to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick - to enter into greater service for the least of my brothers and sisters.