Blessing of an Advent Wreath at Home & Lighting of the First Candle
The First Sunday of Advent is December 2nd.
All make the Sign of the Cross as the leader begins:
℣ +Our help is in the name of the Lord.
℟ Who hath made heaven and earth.
Let us pray.
O God, by whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth Thy blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from Thee abundant graces. Through Christ our Lord. ℟ Amen.
The following Scriptures are read:
Ps 50.2-5
Out of Sion hath God appeared * in perfect beauty.
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; * there shall go before him a consuming fire, and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about him.
He shall call the heaven from above, * and the earth, that he may judge his people.
Gather my saints together unto me; * those that have made a covenant with me with sacrifice.
John 1.1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Light one purple candle. With hands joined, the leader prays:
ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead; we may rise to the life immortal; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. ℟ Amen.
The devotion may conclude with a verse from "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel":
O come, desire of nations, bind
in one the hearts of humankind;
bid ev'ry sad division cease
and be thyself our Prince of peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.