Advent is Mary Who watches over our every step and embraces us with tenderness. We are called to be vigilant with Her. Nowadays let’s be like She is in the midst of peacelessness, tension, violence, natural disasters and wars. Let’s hug all our sisters and brothers with Her tender embrace and encourage them to pray.

She said: “Those who pray are not afraid of the future, those who fast aren’t afraid of evil”. When we pray God Himself is watching over us. Mary calls for Advent to be the family prayer for us. Jesus the King of Peace was born in the family. The Heavenly Mother speaks clearly, specifically and comprehensively.

Let’s remember Her School of the family prayer. Let’s create the prayer’s corner with the cross in the center, with the icon of Virgin Mary, open God’s Word and Advent wreath. Let’s come to this place to pray personally and together. Prayer must be in the first place in the family. Don’t permit the work and daily chores to drown out the spirit of prayer.

She calls the families to pray to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit revives, transforms, strengthens and renews. It will happen in our families in the same way as it was after the first common prayer of the disciples and Mary after Jesus’s death. The Holy Spirit revives us and we become active and dear to Mary’s Heart in accordance with the words She has said to us: “In prayer you shall perceive the greatest joy and the way out of every situation that has no exit. Thank you for starting up prayer. Each individual is dear to my heart. And I thank all who have urged prayer in their families. Thank you for having responded to my call” (28.03.1985).

She desires for our families to pray the Rosary. The Rosary which is a prayer for peace is at the same time a prayer of the family and for the family. “The family which prays together remains the only one. The family which prays the Rosary together recreates something from the atmosphere of the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth; its members put Jesus in the center, they share His joys and sorrows, put their needs and plans in His hands, they draw in Him the hope and strength to go on” (John Paul II, encyclical “Rosarium virginis Mariae”).

Our Heavenly Mother says to us that today’s family is bleeding. “Through the Rosary open your heart to Me and I am able to help you” (25.08.1997). “Pray the Rosary every day-that wreath of flowers which, as a Mother, directly connects Me with your pains, sufferings, desires, and hopes” (02.09.2019).

Family prayer should take place in the morning as well as in the evening. In the morning we enter the day together with the Lord in prayer and ask for God to lead, bless and protect us. The early prayer contains the reflections on the Gospel for the day; we are to read it aloud. Mary teaches us to put the Holy Scripture in the visible place for it to accompany us when we go out of the house and meet us when we come back home. 

Jesus is born in our hearts and families through the prayer and reading of the Holy Scripture. Mary met God in the prayer, accepted His word, kept it in Her heart and brought it to others by Her service to the neighbors. In Advent we see how Mary is in a hurry to Ain Karem to help Her relative  Elizabeth.

“In God’s word Mary is like at Her home, She goes out quite naturally as well as comes back. She speaks and thinks according to God’s word; God’s word becomes Her word; and Her word is born from God’s word. Even more, it turns out in this way Her thoughts are consonant with God’s thoughts and Her will is to desire what God desires” (Apostolic teaching Verbum Domini, 28).

We also enter the day like Mary with Jesus in the heart, taught by His word and full of determination to carry it to all whom we meet.

The evening prayer should be gratitude for everything God has given us during the day. Giving thanks we reveal that all we have comes from Him.

It is important to do an examination of conscience in the evening and to look back at what has happened during the day. First, give thanks for good and then remember the things that weren’t good. Let’s ask the Lord for forgiveness, forgive others and ask the members of the family for forgiveness.

“Let prayer be life for you. A family cannot say that it is in peace if it does not pray. Therefore, let your morning begin with morning prayer, and the evening end with thanksgiving. Little children, I am with you, and I love you and I bless you and I wish for every one of you to be in my embrace. You cannot be in my embrace if you are not ready to pray every day” (25.08.1995).

On December, 13 1984, a week before Christmas, She called: “Dear children! You know that the season of joy is getting closer, but without love you will achieve nothing. So first of all, begin to love your own family, everyone in the parish, and then you’ll be able to love and accept all who are coming over here. Now let these seven days be a week when you need to learn to love”.

A perfect growth in love begins when we make the decision to love our own family. From that moment on love spreads further. God and peace are there where love is, this is what Christmas is all about.

Prayer

Mary, from Your tenderness embrace we desire to embrace the whole world, all our sisters and brothers who don’t have what we have. We ask with You and together with those who have responded to Your call for peace that peace may get stronger and conquer the unrest and hatred. We pray for an end to all the wars especially in Ukraine and in the Middle East. May Jesus, the King of Peace, Who we are waiting for, be born in the hearts of those who make decisions about war and peace. We pray fervently for peace in our hearts, families and in the whole world. Amen