An Advent Weekend of Prayer

IC photo/Marie Mischel

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The "To Mary's House" Advent Night of Prayer, which began at 9 p.m. and ended a with a Rorate Mass at 5 a.m., drew about 20 people.

This past weekend I spent with the Holy Family. First was the all-nighter “To Mary’s House” Advent Night of Prayer, which was organized by the St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center and held at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in Park City as an activity for World Youth Day 2021 that primarily was dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Then was the two-hour diocesan Advent retreat, during which Fr. Stephen Tilley focused on the dreams of St. Joseph. On Sunday I reflected on a homily that emphasized that Jesus was the only one of all the great religious teachers to claim to be the one true God.

I’d like to be able to say that all this time of prayer and reflection resulted in a profound change, but the truth is that I’m still the same sinful person as I was before. Except, except, except – I believe I am slightly more loving, slightly more patient today than I was on Friday.

A few impressions of the Advent Night of Prayer: Behind the altar was hung a copy of a first-century icon of the Theotokos, and I felt her eyes on me the entire time I was in the church, filled with a compassion that offered comfort even as I knelt in prayer, confronting my sinfulness.

Having the entire night to devote to prayer was a luxury; there was no pressure to get finished so I could move on to the next obligation on my schedule.

During Adoration, I realized I was bringing all the dirty laundry of my soul to place in front of the most scandalous act in all of history – the horrific death of a man who was not only innocent but also the Son of God, and it occurred to me how petty I am in the face of that sacrifice, and how awesome it is that Christ made that sacrifice for me as well as for all mankind.

In prayer I also contemplated these questions from the book I am using for Advent reflection, Memento Mori, An Advent Companion on the Last Things: “What does Jesus want to heal in you? What do you ask him to heal in you?” These were intensely personal questions, so I will only say here that the contemplation brought up first thoughts of shame that I am so petty, but then as I went deeper into what I truly seek I felt the comforting touch of the Holy Spirit.

The procession under the brilliant stars of the sky at 1 a.m. made me breathless not from the clear mountain air but rather in wonder at the beauty of God’s creation.

I would have thought that the Akathist hymn, which we sang for about 20 minutes while standing the entire time, would send my thoughts careering into boredom, but instead I reveled in the lyrics: “Rejoice O you through whom the curse will disappear” and “Rejoice O Wound ever-hurting to the demons” and “Rejoice or Gardener of the Gardener of life!”

A few hours later, at the diocesan Advent retreat, Fr. Tilley reinforced the message from my reflection of the previous night when he said, “What defines us is our relationship with God: how we see God and how he sees us, and how we see God seeing us. … Do we look upon God as a loving father or a judge?”

The priests at both retreats emphasized that while both Mary and Joseph serve as intercessors for humankind, and we are right to pray to them, our focus should always be on Jesus. The Catechism of the Church tells us that Mary always points to her Son, and Fr. Tilley emphasized that, “Joseph’s ultimate vocation was to love and adore Jesus,” and we should do the same.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. Reach her at marie@icatholic.org.