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.
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