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An Advent Candle-Lighting Liturgy

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An Advent Candle-Lighting Liturgy CHRISTMAS APPEAL 2016 An Advent candle-lighting liturgy This liturgy for lighting the candles on your Advent wreath enables the whole church to reflect on people without a safe place to call home this Christmas, and to pray that together we may light the way. Please share photos of your Advent candle wreaths with us on social media using #LightTheWay. Please feel free to adapt, extend or abbreviate the liturgy according to your context. (This reflection/poem can be read every Sunday as an introduction to the liturgy.) From light comes life. Deep in expectant earth, a seed stretches. Through the fire-start of imagination, an idea takes root. In a passionate flash, love glows with infant intensity. Safe in the womb, a child senses its season turning and stirs. It is Advent, something coming, vulnerable in its unstoppable desire… God, unquenchable light, may they grow – the seed, the love, the idea, the child. This Christmas, 65 million people simply can’t Voice 2: When hope hangs low in the human be at home. Forced out by the darkness of heart, you, loving creator, kindle violence and fear, they’re searching for safety compassion, breathing life into the and refuge. early embers of change and empathy. As we light the candles on our Advent wreath, Light the candle. we pray for Christian Aid, and all who seek to light the way out of poverty and darkness. Voice 1: We light a candle for hope, sending prayers high into the inky heavens and dreams deep into the human soul. First Sunday in Advent Voice 2: As Advent dawns, God of all hope, Let us pray shine your light on the story of the saints who journeyed before us. May Voice 1: As winter days dim and bow to early the seeds they planted in the world darkness, you, God of light, set watch – peace, joy, love – take hold in our in the night sky and beckon the wise to hearts and stretch towards the light. follow. All: We light a candle for hope. May it light the way. Second Sunday in Advent Light three candles. Let us pray Voice 1: Joy is not a commodity that can be bought or sold, but lives deep in the Voice 1: In the settle and stir of a burnt-orange human spirit. Help us to hear that sunrise, in the lilting laughter around truth and believe it. Let go of what a table full of friends, in the flash our consumer culture says will bring of clarity that turns on the light of us happiness – money, success, a insight and leads us towards wisdom, scramble to the top that leaves us we find the peace that passes all flat. If we have robbed others of what understanding. they need in our clamour and quest for more than our fair share, forgive Voice 2: But there are things we need to us. Help us hear the call of John the understand. Help us hear you in the Baptist to turn around and begin again. stories of those who struggle. God of love, we were made in joy. May we live that way. Voice 1: Peace is what the prophets foretold. All: We light a candle for joy. May it light Voice 2: Peace is what is sacrificed when profit the way. takes precedence. All: We light a candle for peace and pray for the courage to stand up for it. Fourth Sunday in Advent Light two candles. Let us pray Voice 1: In this second week of Advent, as the Voice 1: Let your light shine. Let your spirit waiting and expectation heighten, soar. Throw open your mind. Hand deepen our desire for peace. over your heart. Here it comes – love. Voice 2: Like the wise called to journey in Voice 2: It shines in the darkness. It sings in the those early dawning days, may we shadows. It will not cower and cannot seek, strive, search for peace. Like the be contained. prophets old and new, may we cry out for its coming. Voice 1: It was the hope of the saints, the call of the prophets. It was the fire in the All: We light a candle for peace. May it belly of the Baptist and the courage of light the way. Mother Mary. Voice 2: Lamp in the window, beacon on the hill, star in the night sky. Love, you Third Sunday in Advent lead us home. Let us pray Light four candles. Voice 1: Uncontainable, irrepressible, bubbling Voice 1: On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we up in an explosion of energy. light a candle for love. Voice 2: What the weary long for, what our All: We light a candle for love. May it light children often embody, what makes the the way. Divine smile – joy. Voice 1: It cannot be paid for, but is a priceless treasure. Voice 2: As we hope for your arrival, as we pray for peace in your living, as we wait and watch and wonder how you might reveal yourself to us, God give us joy in your Advent. Christmas Eve/Christmas Day Let us pray Voice 1: Love-shine, your moment has come. In the dark of the womb you waited. Bathed in the balm of the star, you rest. Into a world sorely in need of your light, you are born. Voice 2: When you knock on our door looking for room, may we welcome you. Like the herald of your birth, call us to share your good news first with those who are poor, excluded and afraid. All: The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out. Light the Christ candle and all four Advent candles. Voice 1: The love of heaven has come to Earth. Voice 2: The call of Christ begins in a baby’s cry. Listen and respond. All: We light the Christ candle. May it light the way. Stories to challenge and inspire These stories can be used in prayers to Third Sunday intercession, to inform sermons/reflections or Christian Aid has been supporting refugees as aids and examples for Sunday School and from Myanmar’s civil conflict in camps on the Youth Groups. Please use them in ways that Thailand-Myanmar border for more than 30 work in your context. years. Now, as the political situation shifts and the possibility of returning home becomes more realistic, we’re helping refugees to prepare for First Sunday their return. Two weeks after Joudy and Mhealden were One teacher in Nu Po camp says: ‘The light will married in war-torn Syria, they were forced to come after the dark. I want my people to see the take to the road. They eventually reached the light.’ Serbia-Macedonia border, where Christian Aid is supporting refugees with hot food to sustain them, clothes and shoes to replace worn-out Fourth Sunday ones, and hygiene kits to help them keep Celebrating Jesus, the light who came into the healthy and clean. world, many of us fill our homes at Christmas with light and laughter, family and friends. But for millions who are fleeing from conflict, a Second Sunday joyful home is a distant memory at best. As we Celestin had to flee violence, after his bishop celebrate the light of the world, we remember and nine of his fellow priests were killed by those surrounded by darkness, and pray that our armed groups in the Democratic Republic of candle will light the way. Congo. Now his ministry brings the light of Christ to others who have been forced to escape from horrific violence. The community in which he now works as a priest is relatively safe compared to areas around it, so it has become a sanctuary to many traumatised survivors of violence. Local host families show extraordinary generosity and kindness to newcomers, but their few resources are often stretched. Eng and Wales charity no. 1105851 Scot charity no. SC039150 Company no. 5171525 Christian Aid Ireland: NI charity no. NIC101631 Company no. NI059154 and ROI charity no. 20014162 Company no. 426928. The Christian Aid name and logo are trademarks of Christian Aid. Christian Aid is a key member of ACT Alliance. © Christian Aid September 2016 J6012.
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