An amazing kick start towards Advent at Mary’s Angels Choir, Ħ’Attard #prayerspaces

03/12/2019 Blog Prayer Spaces

These prayer spaces were an abundance of God’s grace and a fantastic kickstart towards advent. Sounds rather funny, but in today’s world, we felt the need to spiritually, psychologically and socially prepare ourselves and our choir community to prepare ourselves for this blessed liturgical time of the year.

The activity started with the Jesse Tree activity. While the little ones coloured pictures showing the main episodes in the family tree of Jesus, the older ones had to find from Bible related quotes. Afterwards, we shared the picture and the quote and hung them all on the tree. We concluded that on day 25^th of the advent calendar, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Our Light. It was then that we lit up the Tree, which gave the participants a hint of how important it is for each of us to WAIT!

Jesse Tree

The labyrinth

In which the participants had to recall a positive experience in which they felt happiness, write it down on a piece of paper and then find the way through the labyrinth until they reached the cradle where they placed their papers instead of straws for baby Jesus to lay on. This prayer space led to a lot of internalization of thoughts. Some gave up on their way to the cradle; others asked for help, and little ones kept persisting in finding the way to Jesus, while elder ones ended up looking at them and their willingness to find the way.

Finding the light – Jesus- makes us, in turn, want to share this happiness with others. In another station, the participants had to think of people who light their lives, and help or guide them. Then they lit a small candle and took it next to the Blessed Eucharist. On their way, they had to thank God and pray for these people. Following, they knelt down next to the Eucharist and asked God to show them in their hearts how they can be light to others, especially during this time of advent.

After some video clips, we discussed how lucky we are that Jesus wanted to come and get messy with our messy lives. So during this preparation time, let us prepare ourselves through the sacrament of reconciliation.

Finally, everyone wrote down his/her prayer, and we created the chain of prayers and decorated the Jesse tree with it. Some of the kids asked their parents when we were going to have something similar again organized, others said that they found like a family praying together, and some others said that they managed to feel at peace and calm.