Prayers Advent Reflections

Monday - Feast of Saint John of the Cross

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14 | FEAST OF SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS 
Numbers 24:2-7, 15-17a; Psalm 25; Matthew 21:23-27

God of the Advent night, teach us to inhabit the drawn-out waiting, until longing becomes welcome and we awaken to the Love already within and among us.

Open our hearts to the prayer of attention: to wait without grasping and to receive each moment as it is.

When suffering or joy arises within us, help us trust that neither lies outside Your Presence and that Your love can hold what our minds often cannot understand.

When answers do not come, and the way ahead is unclear, remind us that we are not abandoned, for in You we live and move and have our being.

With Saint John of the Cross, lead us through the night toward the Beloved, making us tender witnesses to the mystery that love can ache, rejoice and endure in the same breath, that every wound may become a doorway into compassion, and every encounter may reveal that we belong to one another in You.

Come, Lord Jesus, and make our waiting a welcome, our darkness a path, and our lives an offering of love.

Diarmuid Rooney, MSPsych, MTS, DSocAdmin
Vice President for Sponsorship & Mission Services
Catholic Health Association

Pause

Where am I being invited to loosen my grasp, welcome this moment as it is, and recognize Christ already present within me, among us, and especially in those on the margins?

Pray

God of the Universe, Creator of Light and Dark: You have formed us together as one body to proclaim Your peace. Draw us beyond our own narrowness to recognize Christ within ourselves and one another. Help us to choose unity – humility over pride and patience over anger. Make in us Your dwelling place, O God, that we may be worthy builders of Your Kingdom and true instruments of Your grace. Amen.