Advent, week one: HOPE is here!

I love the way God works.

Last week I posted about our annual Thankful for Advent party. If you remember, Advent is separated into four weeks, and each week has a theme. The theme for this week is hope. Since the theme for this year's party was discipleship in the family, we tried to work on applying the concept of building hope to our family discipleship.  This morning I learned that Hope is a gift God wants to give liberally!



One resource I had used was my friend Liza's blog, in which I read a while back a post which affected me for it's reminder to speak good and true things.

The particular hymn she brought up was one I remembered singing a few times and whose message I really appreciated for times of need. I determined that it would be one I should teach my children.  We learn a few hymns per month as a part of their homeschooling, and this seemed like one we should add to our repertoire.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.


My kids are very young, and singing hymns is touch-and-go right now.
They love to sing, but it is a painful process of off-key rambling for weeks before they learn the lyrics since they cannot read, or at least, not well enough to keep up. Some people find this stuff delightful. My husband and I, who are big on peace and order, not so much.

So the in-between learning stage of each song we impart to them has driven my husband and myself slightly bananas... although we have enjoyed the periodic misunderstandings of the lyrics we glimpse. One of my facebook statuses the other day said:

During bathtime tonight, (my second youngest) was singing about "another ground chicken named Sam," which gave me pause until I realized she was singing the lyrics to a hymn we are learning.... "all other ground is sinking sand." :D

Anyways, in the same vein, I had taught last week that family devotions created a culture of faith in the home, and that FAITH was the key that unlocked hope. I asked everyone to recommit themselves to family devotions, even if they were hard or seemed unfruitful, and I commited myself to persevering in that area as well.

My kids are just getting old enough to where we can enjoy family devotions without them being drudgery for the adults (my husband and I are not really "kid people." Ironically, considering we have a few of them.)
We have never dumbed things down for them, but finding meaningful ways to impart knowledge to a child that isn't campy or contrived is challenging. My husband definitely has more of a knack for speaking to children than I do.
The other night I was privileged to witness the Jesse tree family devotional of my friend Cherry's dinner table. Her children are young and they kept it very simple and fun. It was beautiful to experience, and seeing all the adults in the room intentionally spending this time with the children to pass on the faith was so encouraging. Her children were so happy and involved.
That simplicity is not something which comes naturally to me. It takes nurturing and sacrifice on my part to speak in their language.

To add to the difficulties, we live in a house with my father in law, who not being Catholic, has a great mistrust of any Catholic-isms we use in prayer or devotions (like lightng a candle or holding a crucifix), and who is notorious for interrupting our family devotions or prayer time for things that can-- and should-- wait.

So thusfar our family devotions have been kind of.... blah.... and I have rarely felt that everyone was making the deep connections outside of "surface behavior" that I hoped they would make. We aren't mining the Word, just kinda scratching the surface, and we are constantly interrupted.
Until today.

By some miracle, we woke up this morning and everyone remembered and understood the lyrics to our call to prayer and to our hymn.
My husband has recently noticed the kids were tuning out during LOTH and recommended something less burdensome,  so we are trying something new, focusing just on the mass readings but unpacking them together.

They actually listened with interest to the readings today. They sang our hymn with zeal and enthusiasm.
And would you believe that this just happened to be the Gospel reading?

Mt 7:21, 24-27
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,'
will enter the Kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

"Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.
And everyone who listens to these words of mine
but does not act on them
will be like a fool who built his house on sand.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
And it collapsed and was completely ruined."

 To top it off, we had witnessed a huge argument between family members the day before and it had really affected us all. It triggered in each of us feelings of hopelessness and deep regret and sadness and anger.
We have just begun for now to get our family devotional reading from The Word Among Us, and I had printed out the following devotional to read to them:

Saint Nicholas, Bishop

“It did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.” (Matthew 7:25)
Thursday, December 6
All builders know the importance of a firm foundation. Before they begin putting up walls or windows or doors, they make sure that they have dug down far enough to set the house on solid ground. Over time, however, the weight of the home or erosion of the soil can cause the foundation to shift, allowing cracks to form in the walls. These cracks act as a warning, telling the home­owner to fix the damage before things get worse. When the warning comes, the best solution is to attach sturdy steel piers to the foundation and bore deeper into the soil, set­ting the home on more solid rock.
Many of us would say that our spiritual homes are pretty well built. We believe in the Lord, we try to pray at Mass, and we seek to live out Jesus’ command to love one another. Even so, we can all proba­bly identify a couple of areas where cracks are beginning to show. Especially now, with the holidays approaching, family relationships can show the greatest signs of stress.
Don’t let the warnings go unheeded! Is there someone in your family whom you are strug­gling to love or forgive? Try to set the relationship on a firmer foun­dation—the foundation of Jesus’ teachings on love and mercy. Ideally, this may involve asking that person for forgiveness, or offer­ing forgiveness yourself. But it may also mean simply making a con­scious decision to treat that person with respect and continue to pray for healing and resolution in your relationship. Or it may mean just asking the Lord to keep the situa­tion from driving you crazy!
Whatever the situation, don’t feel as if you have to resolve everything by Christmas—although it would be wonderful if you could! If you could take just one more step in setting your own house on a more solid foundation, you will make sig­nificant progress. You can’t control how other people will respond to you, but you can set yourself on a foundation that will support what­ever stress may still be involved in the relationship.
“Jesus, help me to stand on solid rock in all my relationships this Advent. Guide me as I try to resolve any unsettled issues with my loved ones. Lord, I want my home to reflect your love, mercy, and peace.”
Isaiah 26:1-6; Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 19-21, 25-27

My father in law was in the kitchen as we went through it, and for the first time since moving in with him he actually listened and participated. Instead of derailing the direction of the conversation, he contributed and even mentioned how good it was for him to hear.
Can you imagine a more perfect moment?? We discussed forgiveness, how love was the answer to each of these problems, and we even broke into song at one point-- all singing the same hymn lyrics and realizing how they connected. It was the first time I felt TRUE fellowship with my children during bible STUDY. And I can't even begin to describe how beautiful our prayer time immediately afterwards was. They prayed from their hearts, and it was incredible.

My heart was filled with gratitude. And just as the theme for our week one of advent was HOPE, and as I had mentioned to the ladies at our Thankful for Advent party last week, through faithfulness to commit to family prayer time despite all distractions, faith is built, which leads to hope.

My friend Holly in Isla Vista went into labor on thanksgiving with their daughter Hope. Her husband says: "Remember that Thanksgiving gives birth to Hope!" It's true-- as we gathered round the breakfast table faithfully to pray and offer thanks, we received the gift of Hope!

So persevere, mammas, in family prayer time. Eventually those young ones will begin to grasp what you are trying to build and why, and better yet-- will bring their own bricks to lay on your firm foundation. All other ground is sinking sand!