Rite of Confession: 1st Advent (B)

"The four Sundays of Advent find us exploring the four themes of the lectionary texts that have emerged in our prayerful reflection: remembrance, waiting, imagination, and hope. Each Sunday attempts to bear these themes in mind cumulatively (i.e., First Sunday: remember; Second Sunday: remember, wait; etc.). The confessional rites of each Sunday will be shaped in part around these themes, specifically in the ways that we fail to remember God's promises; wait expectantly for God to do a new thing; imagine the world as God might and our part in it, and; hope for the life of the world that is on its way, especially in the Advent (both the first and second) of the Christ. I hope this helps in some small way.

Call to Reconciliation

"Advent has come again, and together we go fully into it. It is a time of remembrance, of waiting, of imagination, and hope. It is a season of watchfulness, yearning, bliss. For in it, we see light at the end of our darkness. And yet, shadows of that darkness remain. Let us confess our sin - first alone, then together - that in our confession we may see the ways we allow that darkness to remain, doing so in the good hope that the Light might shine once again to overcome it. Let us pray together..."

Prayer of Confession

Silence

Merciful God, you have invited us to enter again into a new time, a new  season, where - with watchful waiting and hopeful imagination - we might remember your promise to make of this old world a new one by the coming of the Christ. We are not alert, though, to your coming. We are pinned down instead by other pressures, preparations, and plans. You promise to do something new, but your "newness" requires the kind of change that we have been told be wary of, and we had just begun to be comfortable. Forgive us, we pray. Restore in us a sense of awe in who you are, a sense of wonder in what you are doing, and a sense of pleasure in our playing a part in your life-giving Advent story of God-with-us, again and again. Through Christ. Amen.

The Pouring of the Waters of Baptism

Remember your baptism and be thankful!

The Declaration of the Promise of Forgiveness

Hear the good news - the gospel of God! In Jesus Christ, God remembers our sin no more, and says instead: You are forgiven!

Thanks be to God!

Amen!

Amen!

Gloria Patri

The Passing of the Peace