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Let the waiting begin
Catholics use Advent to prepare for Christmas
J.D. Long-García/CATHOLIC SUN
St. Benedict parishioners Michael Schroeder and his daughter Amber light an Advent wreath candle. The family makes the wreath, which features figurines of an angel, Mary, Joseph and Jesus, the focal point this time of year.
By Ambria Hammel
The Catholic Sun
Ask 10 Catholics how they prepare for Christmas and you’ll get 10 different answers, including shopping for gifts, decorating the house and preparing a fancy feast.
But the key in preparing for the Christmas season lies in Advent.
“The main symbol that we use for Advent is the Advent wreath,” Crosier Father Dave Donnay said of the four-week season, which began Nov. 29.
Each piece of the wreath — the shape, the color of the candles and the flames — symbolizes some aspect of the Adventus, or coming, of Jesus’ birth at Christmas.
That’s why Micki Schroeder, a parishioner at St. Benedict, is sure to make the family’s Advent wreath — which also features porcelain figurines of an angel, Mary, Joseph and Jesus — the family’s main focal point this time of year.
“Although chaos is going on around us, we need to focus on what is really going on at Christmas,” Schroeder said. “We take the nighttimes that we do have together as a prayer time.”
Between four kids ages 7 to 14, including twins, the family usually gathers three times a week.
Schroeder takes turns lighting the wreath with her husband Mike, then the family reflects on a reading and the children take turns blowing out the candles when they’re done.
Fr. Donnay, who is helping coordinate an Advent day of recollection this week for his community and lay Catholics, said the Advent wreath and its increasing amount of light holds great symbolism — not to mention great appeal for young boys who are “fascinated by fire and flame.”
Creating a focal point
The Dawson family takes their time around the Advent wreath a bit further.
Laura Dawson said her family — which includes her husband and their two kids, ages 12 and 19 — light the wreath each week before dinner. Then they read from a booklet of family prayers for the season.
The booklet also includes challenges related to the readings. Each family member takes turns sharing the good deeds they’ve noticed or done that week.
“It reminds you of goodness and love and Jesus,” Dawson said. “It reminds you to think more during the day than usual about showing love.”
Janice Petrucci, a parishioner at San Francisco de Asís in Flagstaff, also used the Advent wreath to teach her two sons, now grown, about the period of waiting.
“We always cut greens from our yard and made our own Advent wreath,” Petrucci said. The family read from a seasonal prayer booklet and let the boys light the candles.
“It made them more aware of waiting for someone special,” Petrucci said.
But that’s not the only way to celebrate the season of waiting.
“Anything that you do ritually is important,” Fr. Donnay said.
“When parents tell stories about Christmas, the scriptural stories that precede Christmas are the Advent stories,” Fr. Donnay said. He pointed to the stories of John the Baptist being born and of Joseph as examples.
Those stories can also be found in the ritual of the Jesse Tree, which Petrucci taught to Catholic school students before retiring. Jesse, the father of King David, is often looked upon as the first person in the genealogy of Jesus.
Petrucci said the students loved to make their own ornaments for the Jesse Tree, which features symbols by which key figures in the Old Testament were known.
Patricia DiMatteo’s kids are grown now too, but she still recalls the 15 years she spent with her kids making the Jesse tree around the kitchen table. The idea started as a way to reinforce what her children learned at Catholic school, but quickly became a family tradition.
DiMatteo still displays the tree each year at the beginning of Advent.
“There’s lots of things that you can talk about depending on how old the kids are,” Fr. Donnay said. “The main idea is that there’s a focal point.”
That’s where an Advent calendar can help. Some count down the days until Christmas while others offer various prayers.
Celebrations vary
One of those days is the feast of St. Nicholas, which the Schroeders observe. The children leave out their shoes overnight and find small gifts, including chocolate coins, inside them by morning time.
Micki Schroeder is also sure to place a figurine of Santa kneeling by the baby Jesus at the Nativity scene.
“It puts into context how you can explain someone as iconic as St. Nicholas,” Schroeder said. “He doesn’t need to necessarily take away the mystery of Christmas, but it’s what he brings to it.”
Offering small gifts to others is another way to celebrate Advent. Fr. Donnay suggested making parish “giving trees” part of the family’s Advent tradition because it celebrates the incarnational sense of what is to come.
“Our love for God and Jesus coming in the human flesh is by doing something for someone else,” Fr. Donnay said.
Catherine E. Hanley in Flagstaff contributed to this story.
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